Re: The Devil Wears Prada
- From: "David RL Gärtner, RMT" <derbarbier@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 15:17:34 GMT
possible spoilers here (tho i don't feel like there were any), so
be careful.
Karina's rating scheme:
http://ensim.streamstudiohost.net/~cinerina.com/reviews/scheme/theschemeflat.html
The Devil Wears Prada
Rental with Snacks (basically, three stars)
Fans of Lauren Weisberger's novel of the same name will notice
some marked differences between that work and this film. Sure,
that happens with all movie adaptations from books, but I think
the difference is significant enough that it starts to resemble
someone else's work entirely. Weisberger wrote a semi-fictional
account of a job from hell she had with a major "unnamed"
editrix but rumors abound as to the identity of that hellish
boss. This movie declaws the written character of Miranda
Priestly and gives her lead, Andrea Sachs, balls we never saw
coming. As a result, book fans may feel a little cheated.
That is not to say that anyone in any way gives less than a
delicious performance. Meryl Streep's silver-wigged Miranda is
so deliciously cold-blooded that she teeters dangerously on the
edge of camp; Streep keeps that from happening. Ann Hathaway's
Andrea looks the doe-eyed innocent and sexes up real good with
the fancy pants later, but it's her character that was reimagined
so jarringly that I had trouble appreciating what Hathaway was
doing. Stanley Tucci also studiously avoids camp in the role of
Nigel.
The lack of camp is either what is best about the film or what is
desperately wrong. At times the movie seems defensive about
fashion as an industry, as if it would have lost all the
incredibly expensive loaner wardrobe if it had dared to mock the
superficiality and the cutthroat nature of that business. At
other times the outfits are so horribly over the top and hideous
that there is no way they were seriously trying to pull off "she
looks really good!" Either the people need to be so over the top
that we can better feel Andrea's floundering, or they need to be
so restrained that the choices they make actually make sense. I
am sorry to say, I blame the screenplay or the director for
defanging and backing down. I actually see people with more
egregious senses of entitlement every day in my big, bad city;
Miranda Priestly by and large makes relatively reasonable
requests for a woman in her position (and some that are more
funny than horrible). Not all, it is a movie after all, but more
than I would have hoped.
I did enjoy myself - the many changes from the book's plot kept
me interested in what happens next, but midway through the movie
(during a pivotal scene, sorry to say) I thought to myself, "I
could never see this again and be Ok with that." It's a movie
that balances work and life, paying dues versus selling your
soul, but I never feel that the stakes get high enough for those
choices to be in serious jeopardy. It's worth seeing for Streep
alone, or making fun of the clothes, but don't spend too much
money on it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This review copyright 2006 Karina Montgomery.
Feel free to forward but with this signature attached.
Member: Online Film Critics Society
Archive at www.cinerina.com
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