The Devil Wears Prada 2 Review | Meryl Streep Battles A Ravaged Media Terrain In Spry But Faint Sequel

Journalism is dying. Magazines are staring at a rocky fate, its hovering demolition in the race to land online traction. Who knew it'd take a Devil Wears Prada film to sound the bugle? As the much-anticipated sequel sharply reiterates, journalism, rather everything is entirely at the mercy and whims of billionaires. AI threatens disposability at all times. The hope to be given due means to pursue a story is secondary to the fact whether you can even latch onto a job. With David Frankel resuming the reins, The Devil Wears Prada 2 plays like a nightmare for journalists, cutting too close to the bone at times before teasing some grace.

The opening is ripe with irony. Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), a well-regarded journalist now, is getting a prize while she's casually notified by text of mass layoffs. Just like that, she has no job. Usual words are flung about. The company is downsizing, consolidating. Yet, CEOs get away with hefty paycheques. Nevertheless, The Devil Wears Prada 2 remembers to leaven its despairing bits with sunnier possibilities. Things seem routinely bleak until a blessing arrives. A miraculous contrivance finds Andy doled a new job as a features editor at Runway.

While Andy is chipper at meeting again her old boss, the fabulous and fearsome Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), the latter deigns not to remember her. Once again, Andy has to earn her new job, impress Miranda. Andy, though, is now more confident, an unstoppable go-getter. Even Emily (Emily Blunt, perfectly pitched as ever), once Miranda’s assistant who’s now a Dior bigwig, acknowledges it, barely disguising shock.

Apart from some customary bite, Miranda appears more defanged this time. She is relatively mellowed in contrast. She seems more vulnerable as if accepting some of her outmodedness in a rapidly transformed world that won’t put up with her luxurious demands. Run-ins with advertisers, digital overhaul leave her grasping for artistic control which she values most. She's humbled by the digital landscape. She can't identify with a world where legacy, a commitment to beauty and excellence no longer hold currency. In meetings, her assistant, Amari (Simone Ashley), is constantly suggesting a more polite language. There have been complaints to HR. Miranda fumbles and stutters through body positivity. Heck, she even hangs her own coat, a sorry sight. However, she's still acerbic at times, precisely putting things in perspective for those who do know their truth but would rather deny it.

Runway has suffered a major hit by featuring a puff piece for a problematic company. It’s been slammed online. Ads stand the risk of being frozen. Andy has been hired to endow the magazine with gravitas, reinstate its tarred credibility. Her naivete is retained from the first part.  She tries to shield Miranda even as the latter springs that she always sniffs out danger. Like Miranda’s right-hand man and art director, Nigel (Stanley Tucci), Andy is defined by loyalty. The women do get to band together, shoulder to shoulder, in rescuing a sinking ship, their work which both dearly love with passion and watchfulness. Frankel ensures at least the parting note is hopeful, while crucially reminding time is borrowed.

This is a more misty-eyed film than its predecessor. Even most of the original crew from the first film return, including DP Florian Ballhaus, composer Theodore Shapiro. So does Aline Brosh McKenna, working with an original screenplay this time. There's a discernible shift. A shrinking media ecosystem is clearly the cynosure here. Anxiety is never-ending. One only prays to stretch out and fight one more day till another round of budget cuts. Nonetheless, Molly Rogers’ costume design pops with commanding coolness. There’s a suaveness to the dresses here.

Streep is haunting and wrenching in a moment of candour. She wonders how she will know when to stop. Unlike the earlier film, there are lovely male allies (Kenneth Branagh's Stuart, Miranda's current husband), who do propel women and don't drag them down into defeat. To watch a titan like Streep square with tradition and inevitability of change is immeasurably moving. It also gives a sweet rush just to watch her Miranda exclaim how much she loves working. There may be more than a couple of differences in how Miranda and Andy conduct professional personas, but both know this is a binding point of mutual respect. The Devil Wears Prada 2 cheerfully coasts off its sprightly group of actors, a delight to watch both individually and together. Streep, Blunt, Hathaway and Tucci clearly adore and revel in each other’s company and it reflects as a blast. However, Frankel struggles to turn the sequel anything transcending a pleasurable yet riff on a familiar joy. Scrape away the deliberate digs at nostalgia bait and you can’t help but question how much of this sequel holds up. Its concerns are noble, valiant, but don’t wholly dress up a film that darts in broad strokes. For all of the distress over the tottering state of journalism, a swishy dress quickly dispels the gloom. The scoops, the hustle over sourcing solid contacts and landing elusive interviews are casually sped through. The Devil Wears Prada 2 cruises by but severely lacks the quotability, the sheer crackling personality of the former part.