52 Pick Up #16 – The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Oh, hey – two fairly recent films in under a month.

Wait, what?

Twenty?

Oh.

Oh God.

Okay. Just gonna table that existential crisis about the passage of time for later. In the meantime, welcome back to another week of 52 Pick-Up, my year long project to keep myself consistently writing and go through some never before seen titles on my cinematic to do list.

For this week, we're marking the second round of my wife invoking the veto power I gave her for a once a month pick (previously used for the rather charming Valley Girl.) Like I said last time, I'm keeping an eye on these – I know there's one other she is sizing up for down the line, so if we wind up with enough 'veto-proof' titles, that may be the last month of the year.

But, it's only April, so no sense getting ahead of things. For the moment, let's get into her pick for this month – between its sequel coming up and some generally not great news on this end (not likely to get into that on here) this seemed a good time to tag in for something lighter. As I'd never seen it before, this led to be watching The Devil Wears Prada for the first time.

This is one where it feels a bit odd doing the summary. I mean, this movie wasn't exactly obscure and it's still pretty well regarded (I say while acknowledging it took me twenty years to watch it.) But, in the interests of trying to keep to the format – here we go. 

For anyone who isn't especially familiar with this one, the movie follows Andrea (Anne Hathaway, and subsequently referred to as Andy) an up and coming journalist fresh out of school and ready to make her name in the industry. Her first opportunity comes in the form of the prestigious Runway fashion magazine. What she initially takes to be an easy assistant's job soon turns into a challenge of professional and stylistic means as she learns the ropes under her employer, the respected (and feared) Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep, and damn, it's been too long since she brought this kind of A game.)

This proved an interesting direction for me in this project, in that this is a movie I went into recognizing, by and large, this isn't really my lane. Not like a 'I know I'm going to hate this' experience, but simply recognizing that, as fashion goes, my knowledge qualifies for...I think the appropriate term here is 'heathen'?

Well, close enough.

Point is, I knew going in this wasn't going to land with me quite the same way it does with other people.

Having said that, I still found enough in here to enjoy. Which sounds like I'm copping out, but I swear, that is not my intent. While I recognize this movie definitely doesn't land for me the way it lands for a lot of other people, that didn't make this a bad time.

It's not quite "No, Ms. Sachs, I expect you to die."
energy, but damn if she couldn't make that pivot here and
still make it play.

If I'm shouting out any one point in particular here, and I suppose I already started to above anyway, it's the cast, and how the core group really help keep this moving and engaging. I know it's become a familiar line from me, but this is definitely another case where I can see a version of this where these characters would fall flat – where Andy's determination becomes grating, where Miranda's 'boss from Hell' energy would be overplayed and genuinely miserable to watch, where Nigel would either be ineffectively nice or pointlessly bitchy, and Emily would be a train wreck in a decidedly far less fun way. 

Thankfully, that isn't the case with what we do get in this, either at the script or performance level. Hathaway strikes a good balance between Andy's stress and also her enthusiasm in a way that keeps it from feeling like the movie is just kicking someone when they're down. Stanley Tucci takes his covert friend and semi-mentor position with that balance of dry humor and heart that, by the time this movie was around, he had made a brand and uses it very effectively here. For Emily Blunt, this was the role that really got her breaking out, and one can see why – like Hathaway, it's a balancing act that could have tipped into just being misery with a less experienced actress (though which levels she is balancing are, of course, different.)

Then there's Meryl Streep. I repeat what I said before – I get why people have talked up this role from her, it's an A game in a way it feels like she doesn't get as many chances to really play into these days. When people tend to picture the feared boss type, the first instinct is the loud, broad archetype, and while I feel like Streep COULD have done that in the right hands, her instinct to go quieter with this makes it much more effective as we watch her calmly, quietly dismantle a person or their arguments without breaking a sweat. It's an entertaining mode to watch her in, and even if it were just that, that would be enough, it's Streep mingling that with those flashes of the human being she is off the clock that really helps make this especially memorable. It's the sort of role that could have been a one note, even an entertaining one note, and Streep keeps it from going that way.

And really, in general, who WOULDN'T want Stanley
Tucci to be a mentor figure?
Like, in prettymuch any field it seems like he could make that work.

So, I have to admit, hearing they got everyone back for this new movie? Potentially good sign. Personally, I'm not sure I'll be seeing it in theaters, because again, I know this isn't really my lane. But, if the word of mouth is good, I may give it a go down the line to see if they can get this balance right again twenty years later.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go curl up under a desk in existential dread at that realization of the passage of time.

If it makes you all feel any better, we're keeping in a lighter mode next time. Sort of.

We're getting ready to launch guerrilla warfare, for cinema. This month's Uncharted Waters takes us into his 2000 comedy, Cecil B Demented.

To be honest, of the unwatched John Waters movies, I think this is the one I've been most excited for. Let's see if it matches my expectation.

Till then.