The Devil Wears Prada 2: Same Characters and Style Sense, But a Mishmash Stitching Job

By Karen Gordon

Rating: B-

Full Disclosure:  The Devil Wears Prada, (2006) is one of my guilty pleasures. Based on the Lauren Weisberger novel, it followed journalism grad Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), who ends up in Manhattan, but not as the writer she’d hoped to be.

Instead, she’s the second assistant to the formidable, imperious, insanely demanding editor of Runway Magazine. Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) was said to be based on the formidable, imperious insanely demanding Vogue editor and fashion icon, Anna Wintour. 

Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci in The Devil Wears Prada 2

It’s a job, she’s told, that a million girls would die for.  But not her.  However, she gets swept up for a while, is plunged into the incredibly competitive world of fashion and intense corporate backstabbing, and emerges wiser and with some clarity about who she really is. 

Thanks to a breezy tone, a nice script and an elevated cast, the film was not too taxing, with enough depth and heart to make it stick. And Hathaway’s transition from frumpy student to fashionista was fun to watch. 

It also launched the career of Emily Blunt, who played the comically intolerant, fashion obsessed, first assistant, Emily. (All the assistants are called ‘Emily’).  And Stanley Tucci’s character Nigel Kipling, Runway’s Art and Fashion Director and Miranda’s indispensable right hand, has become one of his most loved characters.

But nothing about it screamed, “Sequel please!”  And yet, here we are—gulp—20 years later with just that. Sequels are tricky. Sometimes what makes a movie work is a bit like catching lightning in a bottle. As a fan of the first film, my hopes for this was that it would at least be fun. 

The Devil Wears Prada 2, clearly wants that for us.  It aims for the same tone. It nods to the fans of the first film with a storyline that parallels the original. There’s even a version of the lumpy cerulean blue sweater (albeit a vest). There is some fun in that, for sure.  

The world, including the magazine business, has changed in two decades, and the filmmakers take that into account. It’s a reasonable way to go, but alas, the net result of their approach is an uneven, laboured storyline.  

The new film begins with two events that bring Andy Sachs back to Runway Magazine, and reintroduces us to familiar characters.

The now seasoned journalist Andy and her colleagues are at an awards dinner for journalists. She wins her category (no surprise), but that win is announced seconds after she and her colleagues have received a text informing them they’ve been fired. Just another day in the death of newspapers. Her teary speech goes viral. 

Across town, Miranda Priestly is heading into a PR nightmare. The internet is blowing up over the revelation that a fashion company she’s featured is actually a sweatshop. The unflappable, Miranda has been fooled and is paying the price. She’s being vilified and mocked online.  

The scandal could ruin her career and destroy the magazine, especially if the major fashion houses pull their ad dollars.

Publisher Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman) and his son, Jay (B.J. Novak) go into defense mode: They unilaterally hire Andy Sachs as Features Editor to produce the kind of journalistic ballast they hope will give the magazine back its editorial credibility, and signal to key advertisers and readers that, one slip-up aside, the magazine is serious about being serious. 

The deal is made so quickly that Andy shows up at the magazine office before Ravitz has informed Miranda, resulting in an awkward frosty reunion where Miranda denies even knowing who Andy is. 

But there’s damage control to do at Dior, a major advertiser on the fence.

And who is their contact at Dior? None other than her former first assistant, Andy’s former supervisor Emily (Blunt), as direct and humourless as ever. Once again Blunt’s impeccable comic timing, makes her a stand out in the film, and fun to watch (one of the best scenes in the film has Emily rudely snapping at Donatella Versace in perfect Italian). 

Back at the office, Andy begins to turn out the kind of content that Ravitz hoped she would, slowly wins Miranda over, and we get two new characters – rich divorcée and possible investor Sasha (Lucy Liu), and Sasha’s ex-husband, billionaire businessman Benji Barnes (Justin Theroux), a cartoonish, socially inept goof, with serious business instincts.

With the players in play, there’s a tragedy, an ownership drama, and a mirroring of the original film’s climax at Paris Fashion week, with everyone this time heading to the fashion capital of Milano, Italy (with a side trip to Lake Como).

While it’s fun to see the characters back in action, The Devil Wears Prada 2 is overstuffed and meanders.

The film also suffers from self-consciousness. Too many celebrities show up in ways that feel pointless, turning TDWP2 into self-congratulatory mush. 

While the story about the potential sale of Runway dominates the film and is complicated enough, there are also sub-plots, including one that gives Andy a potential love interest (sadly not Adrian Grenier’s character Nate, from the first film), and an overly passionate literary agent arguing the issue of money versus loyalty.  

In principle, the idea the film starts with - the disappearance of true journalism and magazines - is clever and timely. But in the end, that's not where they take the film, or what they settle on for a message. 

That would be the importance of friendship and loyalty. To give the film its due, that lands. But by the time we get there, we’re worn out. 

The Devil Wears Prada 2. Directed by David Frankel. Stars Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt, Lucy Liu, Justin Theroux Simone Ashley, Lady Gaga. In Theaters May 1.