The Devil Wears Prada review

[alobear]

I am very conflicted about this film. As with many a comedy, I didn't think it was funny, I thought it was really sad. However, this may have something to do with the position from which I viewed it. Many people think they've had the boss from hell, but I've actually worked for someone very like the Meryl Streep character in this film.

She was queen of her hill, her word in the office was god, and she was utterly unreasonable. I struggled to do an impossible job with no support or understanding, bearing the criticism and ridicule of an evil psycho bitch from hell. The only advice I ever got was, "You just have to work with her, she'll never change and nobody is going to tell her when she's wrong."

I have never felt as wretched as I felt when I handed in my resignation letter for that job, but now I view it as one of my proudest moments - when I finally realised I couldn't take any more and got out before it made me any more ill than I already was.

Anyway, "The Devil Wears Prada" would seem to have a simple message - if you make your career more important than your personal life, you won't have a personal life and you'll be miserable and unfulfilled.

However, towards the end of the film, they made the Meryl Streep character sympathetic, and the protagonist got what she wanted from the horrible job, namely a good reference from a very powerful figure in the publishing industry.

So, I would say it is very flawed in its message, because it muddies the waters at the end. I also don't agree with forcing the audience into sympathising with Meryl Streep's character - nobody should have an excuse for behaving that way, and nobody should have to put up with that kind of working environment.

Was the message actually that you have to suffer to succeed, that you have to make sacrifices at least for a while if you want to get ahead in life? I really don't know.

Watching the film was a very personal experience for me, and it brought up a lot of very bad memories, which I'm sure was not the intent, so perhaps other people might be able to see its moral more clearly than me.

Empire liked it, and so did my mum, which would normally be a good sign - but it was just a bit too messy for my tastes, and it felt like it copped out on the moral high ground at the end.

Comments

Read the book?

[(Anonymous)]

Remember that Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway are playing real people here. The criticism is only valid if Anna Wintour has a longstanding happy marriage, or Lauren Weisberger wrote a book about the whole thing and then sold the film rights (oh, hang on...)
If you would like a different take, try Swimming with Sharks, where the (male) assistant kidnaps and tortures his evil boss. Much more exaggerated, both for comic effect and to avoid any ambiguity of the message.

David

Re: Read the book?

[alobear.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the book, and I haven't seen Swimming With Sharks yet, either. Not sure I want to read the Laren Weisberger book, and Swimming With Sharks was on my DVD rental list at one point, but I took it off because I thought is might be a bit unpleasant...

[alobear.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was entertaining, but it wasn't funny. There were certainly a lot of great outfits, too.

That was one of the problems, though - which my mum pointed out to me last night. She originally got the job by saying, "I'm not glamorous and fashion-conscious, but I'm smart and I work hard." So, again, the message seemed to be that you shouldn't have to conform to other people's standards of appearance in order to do a good job. But then, part way through, she suddenly started dressing like a catwalk model and dropped a dress size, and this seemed to make her more successful, which was rather an about-face.