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The Devil Wears Prada.

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The Devil Wears Prada

Produced by Joseph M. Caracciolo Jr., Carla Hacken and Karen Rosenfelt; directed by David Frankel; written by Aline Brosh McKenna, based on the novel by Lauren Weisberger; cinematography by Florian Ballhaus; production design by Jess Gonchor; costumes by Patricia Field; edited by Mark Livolsi; original music by Theodore Shapiro and Chris Trapper; starring Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt, Adrian Grenier, and Simon Baker. Color, 109 mins. A 20th Century Fox release, available in DVD from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Telling a comic tale of a young woman's career ambitions--a subject reserved almost exclusively for comedy in the Hollywood influenced media--The Devil Wears Prada adapts for the screen Lauren Weisberger's novel of the same name about the forced detour of Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) into the world of high-fashion publishing. Unable to find a job as a 'legitimate' journalist, Andy takes the only job she can get, at a fashion magazine called Runway, an experience modeled on Weisberger's stint at Vogue. While on its staff, Andy does battle with her overbearing boss, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), modeled on Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, in what's supposed to be a story of how Andy is almost seduced by the Satanic lure of Runway but succeeds in returning to her original (virtuous) love, investigative reporting. However, there's a strong contrapuntal undertow in this movie. For better or for worse, this isn't the story Weisberger told.

Among the best of the feminist commentators on Prada, Rebecca Traister of Salon.com, has duly noted the film's alteration of the sympathy for Andy/Weisberger on which the novel was built. Traister reports the thrill that went through the audience around her during a striking speech, early in the film, in which Miranda castigates Andy for snickering while a solemn choice is made between two turquoise belts for a photo shoot. Andy finds the belts almost indistinguishable, and the audience is likely to agree. That is, until Miranda gives forth with a fire and brimstone speech (which isn't in the book) delivered incongruously in her passive-aggressive, minimalist voice that stakes out her cultural power: everything America--and possibly the world--puts on its back comes into being as a result of "decisions made in this office." I saw the same audience reaction around me during this crucial expository scene, in which the film, seemingly a pleasant 'chick flick,' complicates itself. On the most obvious level, Prada, like the book, defines Miranda as a tyrant over the frivolous and Andy as a socially conscious writer. In the film, however, once Miranda's Miltonian 'I would rather rule fashion than serve...