Review : The Devil Wears Prada

Hah! This must be the first time that a review is being written after the movie has long vanished from the cinema halls of Chennai. What to do? When the movie was playing I wasn't exactly in blooming health and the thought of going all the way to Satyam Cinemas was quite daunting, even though I really wanted to see the movie.So finally I did watch it on DVD and to put it simply - it was very disappointing.

To give a brief outline of the story - Meryl Streep is the powerful and ruthless(???) editor of a leading fashion magazine and Anne Hathway, who comes to New York with dreams of becoming a journalist, lands up as her assistant. Everyone around her keeps telling her how a million girls would love to be where she is, but initially she is not convinced. Well, how can she be, considering she is nothing better than a valet - having to get coffee for her boss, hang up her coat, get stuff organised for her boss' children etc and being in the middle of a shallow world focussing purely on making a dress!! Well, the shallow world is worth billions and employs thousands of people, she is told (and this is true and why is fashion the only target, while there are cosmetics and cosmetic surgery as well as health clubs etc., doing pretty much the same?) and somewhere down the script she flips - for no plausible reason, except for a severe lecture from a colleague - and towards the end of the movies flips back again. There are a lot of characters who float in and out to help her make this point, but since none of them are memorable, I am not going to make the effort.

I had expected a witty, razor sharp movie on the ruthless fashion world but Devil .... is sentimental!! What more can you say?? Everybody, including Meryl Streep looked nice, dressed nice but were terribly unfleshed out characters. I still can't make out Anne Hathway's character - she initially loathes the world, then actually believes in it and then filmy style gets out of it!! I believe the book is much better. I should've just stuck with it! Sigh!