The Devil Wears Prada 2
Twenty years later, Anne Hathaway’s motivated journalist once again ends up in the employ of Meryl Streep’s icy fashion editor.
Dior straits: Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci
Photo by Macall Polay, Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios.
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
The world of fashion has changed a lot since 2006, but Meryl Streep seems not to have altered an iota. Her Miranda Priestley, editor-in-chief of the fashion journal Runway, is still a dragon who treats her circle of yes-women with the derision they have come to expect. But social media and environmental concerns have done her brand no favours and an employee from her past turns up to save her bacon. Here, the characters remain the same but have become dispersed across high societal life, with Anne Hathaway’s idealistic Andrea Sachs now an award-winning reporter and Emily Blunt’s Emily Charlton a big cog in the wheel of Dior. As faithful as ever, Stanley Tucci’s forbearing, loyal and acerbic assistant Nigel Kipling remains true to his lady’s demands.
Returning to the director’s chair, David Frankel has oiled the sequel to the point that one can almost glimpse the rails upon which the plot runs. There are swoonful shots of Manhattan and Milan and an array of fabulous frocks, both “gorg” and wildly impractical, while Ms Streep seems timeless as the pampered publishing icon. Any signs of initial dementia are merely feints to disguise the cerebral machinery operating beneath her Estee Lauder concealer. Miranda Priestley was always a caricature (cf. the stage musical), but Ms Streep brings new layers to her brittle disposition, which is more than one can say for the rest of the cast. The other stand-out is Tucci, who can turn a simple statement into a comic punchline, such as when eyeing up Andrea’s attire: “I don’t mind that blazer…”
The world of high fashion today may seem like something of a guilty pleasure, redundant even, and here there’s a whiff of the twinkle-eyed critique of these rich and beautiful things in dire straits. Splaying its tulle net further, The Devil Wears Prada 2 is also a barbed commentary on the captains of industry and the moneyed maniacs who subsidise the spurious arts. There are plenty of fine one-liners (Emily Blunt: “May the bridges I burn light my way”) and a raft of game cameos (Donatella Versace, Tina Brown, Lady Gaga). But at the film’s close, as yet another familiar pop song drifts off the soundtrack, it all mounts up to a rather negligible affair, an amuse-bouche for what was once the main feature.
Cast: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, Justin Theroux, Lucy Liu, Kenneth Branagh, B.J. Novak, Simone Ashley, Tracie Thoms, Tibor Feldman, Patrick Brammall, Tracie Thoms, Caleb Hearon, Helen J. Shen, Pauline Chalamet, Rachel Bloom, Lady Gaga, Donatella Versace, Tina Brown, Calum Harper, Naomi Campbell, Jon Batiste, Marc Jacobs.
Dir David Frankel, Pro Wendy Finerman, Screenplay Aline Brosh McKenna, Ph Florian Ballhaus, Pro Des Jess Gonchor, Ed Andrew Marcus, Music Theodore Shapiro, Costumes Molly Rogers.
Wendy Finerman Productions-Walt Disney Studios.
118 mins. USA. 2026. UK and US Rel: 1 May 2026. Cert. 12A.
