The Devil Wears Prada 2: A Cash-Grabbing Sequel That Ignores Progress

Any film that once made money and continues to hold a significant place in the cultural zeitgeist is a potential franchise. Because any film that can squeeze out some money from the pockets of the paying audience must be made, for that’s what keeps Hollywood alive, and the new The Devil Wears Prada 2 is exactly that ! Starring Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, the new film brings back Andy, Miranda, Emily and Nigel all under the same roof some 20 years later, with a few new characters, but don’t bother about them, because the film doesn’t either. The first film was a moment in pop culture where Miranda’s quotes made for sassy blurbs on merch, Andy’s makeover was a moment for the 2000s fashion girlies and Emily’s one-liners made for some great GIFs. But, 20 years later, the audience is all grown up, but the film’s characters, sadly, are still the same. And that is the biggest problem with The Devil Wears Prada 2. The film begins with Andy losing her job at a publication that has sold its soul to the devil and fired all its reporters. Miranda is still heading Runway, and is once again up for some new promotion when she is asked to work with Andy to ‘salvage the reputation’ of the magazine. One would think that 20 years later, with all the accolades that Andy has won, and all the ‘real journalism’ she has done, she would be a far more confident person but the film refuses to acknowledge that. When Andy steps inside Runway, you see her shaking in her boots as she quivers outside Miranda’s office, waiting to catch her eye. When she interrupts an editorial meeting, hoping to pitch her ideas, Miranda shuts her down, and Andy turns into the same 20-something-old girl who was unsure of herself and runs to Nigel for a pep talk. Emily finds Andy more confident, but to the viewers, she still comes across as the person who will move heaven and earth so Miranda can keep her job, and maybe, just maybe, half-smile at her when she is walking past her. In the first film, Andy was a fresh-out-of-college woman, hoping to do ‘real journalism’ when she accidentally lands a job at Runway. She has hopes and dreams in her eyes, and actually believes that going above and beyond for Miranda’s whims and fancies is a part of her job. She desperately wants to please her boss and will sacrifice everything that comes in the way to achieve that. This is her first job, and she has no real-world experience to compare it to, so as a viewer, you buy into the world that director David Frankel creates. Looking back, you give her the benefit of the doubt, assuming that at this point in her life, in the mid-2000s, she doesn’t know any better. She is yet to find out that a job isn’t supposed to be this toxic, and yet to learn that people like Miranda must face severe consequences for their behaviour towards their subordinates. Two decades have passed since then. Andy has done some ‘real journalism’ and has had some time to reflect on her time at Runway. But she’s still bending over backwards to please Miranda. When she panic-pitches an interview with Sasha Barnes, played by Lucy Liu, she runs to the ends of the earth to make it happen (which is quite reminiscent of the unpublished Harry Potter manuscript sequence from the first film). When the interview actually happens, you see Miranda talking to Sasha and for a moment, you wonder if Miranda stole it from Andy but the film pretends that it’s Andy’s victory. How? In another sequence, Andy is grilled for the engagement on her stories (like in any digital publication) and is repeatedly pulled up for doing stories that don’t align with Runway’s vision, and once again, she has no real response. ALSO READ | Beef Season 2 review: When hustling is your love language, ‘Beef’ will find you It would be safe to presume that in the last 20 years, since she left Runway, Andy has worked with different kinds of people, watched work culture go through a significant shift, witnessed the revolution of #MeToo, yet she has all the sympathy in the world for Miranda, whose second assistant is still not allowed to take a loo break when they want. The Kool-Aid that was being peddled back in the day is still at the core of Runway: A million girls would kill for this job. Nigel, who has been repeatedly wronged by Miranda for the last two decades, is still in the cult of Runway, and it appears that Andy has gotten in, even without a lucrative pitch. As Andy starts her job this time around, she is still dismissive about the nature of Runway, like in the first film, and eventually changes her mind, also like the first film. But unlike the first film, Andy is not as immature and naive as she once was, or at least you don’t expect her to be. When she learns that the company might be heading towards huge layoffs, she concocts a plan to save everyone’s job. In her head, she is being compassionate, but Miranda sees her actions as selfish, as Andy’s doing it all to save her own job. Despite all the years and wisdom that she might have gained in the last 20 years, Andy still wants to please Miranda desperately, and when she is presented with an idea that would finally get Miranda out of Runway, much to the pleasure of many employees, she gets to the ground running to save the day. What confuses you at this point is why Andy would choose to support Miranda over Emily, as to her, Runway is just another job that she picked up while she was unemployed, and in either case, her job would still be the same. In one of the recent promotional interviews, Meryl shared that she asked for twice her quote when she was approached for the first film because she realised that the makers really wanted to cast her. Who knows if she asked for four times her quote this time around, but for the audience, The Devil Wears Prada 2 is just another cash-grabbing scheme by a major Hollywood studio who might be planning to announce a third one, given how this one is already a success in their books.