The Devil Wears Prada and Won't Get Out of My Head!

David Frankel, 2006

For a predictable, fluffy movie based on a predictable, fluffy book*, The Devil Wears Prada sure inspired a lot of serious post-movie discussion. In attempting to portray the fascinating exploits of the Boss from Hell, Miranda Priestly (played by Meryl Streep), this film instead questions not just a shallow industry, but every shallow industry. And it’s not really about the demanding Miranda (supposedly styled after the editor of Vogue) as much as it is about the completely normal Andy Sachs (played by Anne Hathaway, who’s so cute I want to invite her to my party next Saturday).

Here’s the premise: Andy is a really normal twenty-something with a cute scruffy boyfriend (Adrian Grenier) and small apartment, trying to make it in New York. Immediately as the film begins, she’s juxtaposed (unfavorably) with the chic Manhattanite women that permeate the rest of the film. These girls have amazing places, fancy underwear, and in some cases, drivers. Andy’s shown grabbing a bagel before she hops on the subway, just like the rest of the world, heading to an interview for a job that a “million girls would die for,” as everyone keeps telling her.

At first, she’s disgusted by the posh crew around her, but then, predictably, she gets sucked into the nefarious world of fashion and alienates her friends, cute boyfriend, and doting parents. Oh, and part of this whole rigmarole is her ridiculous boss. Without spoiling it for you, the movie ends well and leaves us with the fortunate conviction that those who seem to have it all are not always happy, and you should really be working at something you like or at least, as cute boyfriend Nate says, doing it with integrity.**

The eerie thing about this movie is its amazing resonance with normal twenty-something girls like myself who look around at all the people who seem better-dressed and more put-together and think “I will never be together enough to look like that.” Not only that, it also resonates with normal any-something any-genders, anybody who spends a lot of time working for very little reward in an industry they can’t really support with their conscience, no matter how sound their reasoning is for getting into it in the first place.

Andy is the Before and Miranda is the After, and that’s what scares the bejeezus out of me.

Not that I work for a fashion magazine. But it’s bigger than that. It’s more a cautionary tale against losing your sense of reality. Andy’s friends don’t disagree with her having this job (as they say, “Here’s to jobs that pay the rent”), they disapprove of her becoming this job, i.e. becoming Miranda Priestly.

To those of us who tend to stress out a little about imperfection, this is alarming. I’m not saying that Lauren Weisenberger (the author) or David Frankel (the director) consciously tapped into this growing desperation among young professionals all over the country to win the imaginary competition of hardest worker, most ambition, and of course, best boots.*** I’m saying they reflect it.

Thankfully, order is restored and happiness resumes, and a great scene at the end involving a small newspaper’s editor who interviews Andy for another job brings us back to earth. We and Andy simultaneously realize that for as many people as there are who take themselves dead seriously, there are just as many people who roll their eyes at them.

*Which I haven’t read, so forgive me if I attribute something to David Frankel that should really be attributed to Lauren Weisenberger.
**As he says in one of the best lines of the film, “I’m making port-wine reduction sauces all day, it’s not like I’m working for the Peace Corps.”
***As a matter of fact, I bet they’re watching the money roll in and secretly scratching their heads, going, “I mean, the film was good, but it wasn’t GREAT.”