Hollywood continues its recycling of beloved classics, moving on from delayed sequels to '80s and '90s hits to early ones from the 21st century.
One could bemoan where this cycle of repetition may lead but there is little to bemoan in ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’, which proves a callback in more ways than one. It is the kind of sequel that used to get made back in the day, it picks up the characters we love and shows how they have moved on. Then slowly slides them back into the dynamics of the original with a twist. The only difference here, those second chapters usually came hot off the first one’s success, and here, twenty – not two – years have passed.
Everybody is back, Anne Hathaway as Andy Sachs the assistant-turned-successful-journalist who returns to Runway Magazine run by the demanding Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep). Meryl owned that first movie which kicked off her run of box office hits in the second act of her career. She remains in fine form here, but not for nothing, there is something admirable in the way that Anne plays the straight lead to Meryl’s icon. They are ably supported by Stanley Tucci as Nigel and Emily Blunt as Emily Charlton.
It is interesting to note the film laments the way we used to live has shrunken with corporate mergers, redundant workforces in this – a 20th Century Studios release from the Walt Disney Company. Is that ironic or subversive? Maybe it just is, the star vehicle seems to acknowledge the fantasy of its tale but tap into a very human angst. Mansions are zoomed in on but not revelled in, we are transported all the way to beautiful Italy which the camera swirls around lovingly, but it always settles down on to people in rooms. Often sitting and talking at a table, negotiating for what is really important to them, against people who are richer and hold all the cards.
It may surprise you to find the titular Devil being one of the former, not latter. Here, humanised and de-powered in all kinds of ways to make us and Andy root and plot for her triumph. That may mean this follow-up feels a little less edgy than its predecessor, but it is just as fun. There are callbacks to the original, cameos galore and a celebration of who these people are and what they have come to mean to us.
Yet there is a natural progression here, interestingly all four main characters have their social lives reversed from where we saw them last in 2006, but in a way that rings true. A truly satisfying sequel, more of what you love but new and different.
The closing shot of the classic ‘Working Girl’ is echoed here but where that film subverted its yuppie capitalist aspirations with its closing shot, here this blockbuster revels in the fairy tale aesthetics of New York at night and posits that maybe if you love what you do at work then you are living the dream.
Cynics could argue such a dream is unrealistic but who better to give us a fairytale than the Walt Disney Company? Especially when it is as enjoyable as this.
