It was not difficult to notice that the movie “The Devil Wears Prada” caused a lot of reviews, both positive and negative. Meryl Streep who plays the leading role in this movie is known as the actress who never gets enough credits for her comedian skills. She plays Andy Sachs, a very smart girl with journalism major at Northwestern University who, planning to get a job someday at “The New Yorker”, one of the most popular American magazines, applies for the job as Miranda’s junior assistant at Runway magazine. Miranda is a very arrogant woman who thinks that the boss has a right to ask even for something impossible which she actually does with Andy, who trying to fulfill her boss’s most unbelievable orders does her best to show that she is worth the job she is doing.
Coming across a lot of different reviews on this movie, the one which is the most fair seems a review written by Mike Goodridge, a journalist of the London’s Quality Newspaper “The Evening Standard”. The name of his article is “Fashion Quakes When Meryl Wears Prada; Streep Insists That Her Magazine Editor in the Devil Wears Prada Isn’t Based on American Vogue’s Anna Wintour. She Has Drawn on Other Friends in the Industry, She Reveals”. Unlike the notes of the authors of other reviews on this movie, for example: “The Devil Wears Prada may not be top of the wish list for a lot of blokes looking for a night out, but if they take the chance they’ll have a real laugh. If you wanted to be overly critical you might wish that with such a solid piece of material the filmmakers could have taken a few more risks. But in the end the key thing is this is a well-made movie that draws you in, makes you laugh and sends you home happy” (Mark Adams, p. 34), Mike Goodridge has an objective take on things, he doesn’t show his criticism or support in any way, he just gives a brief summary of the movie and quotes the actors and other people who have been working on this movie. Some of other newspaper journalists find a lot in common between themselves and the main character of “The Devil Wears Prada” Andy Sachs. For example, Liz Jones writes: “There is one scene in the new film The Devil Wears Prada that sent a shiver of recognition down my spine and made the blood run cold in my veins… it is also a chilling reminder of the most surreal three years of my life – the time I edited Marie Claire magazine and entered a parallel universe of go-sees, call-ins, freebies, front rows, and fabulous clothes” (Liz Jones, p. 41). The same goes for another author: “Last night I watched The Devil Wears Prada. I was expecting to be entertained with a lighthearted film and, indeed, I was–but what I was not expecting was that it would transport me back nearly 15 years to my own start in the world of fashion “journalism”. At some points, I almost began hyperventilating at the memories” (Annalisa Barbieri, p. 52).
Mike Goodridge also compares the plot of the book “The Devil Wears Prada” written by Lauren Weisberger with the movie. He lays emphasis on the fact that the book remained unnoticed whereas the movie is very likely to draw the public’s attention: “The book may be a frothy slice of chick-lit but the Wintour connection gave it added frisson when it was published in 2003. Now, the imminent release of the film adaptation is sending the fashion world into a spin again as it waits to see if Meryl Streep’s version of the editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly is any closer to Wintour” (Mike Goodridge, p. 30).
To sum it up, Mike Goodridge’s article gives enough information on the movie and is not oversaturated with criticism or praise. Moreover, he turned out to be quite a good foreteller saying “It looks like being the must-have movie of the season” (Mike Goodridge, p. 30) as the movie really became very popular with time.
Reference List
- Mike Goodridge. “Fashion Quakes When Meryl Wears Prada; Streep Insists That Her Magazine Editor in the Devil Wears Prada Isn’t Based on American Vogue’s Anna Wintour. She Has Drawn on Other Friends in the Industry, She Reveals”. The Evening Standard. 2006.
- Liz Jones. “Diary of a devil; Diary of a devil; Life Style as the Devil Wears Prada – the Story of a Ruthless Magazine Editor – Hits the Big Screen, former Marie Claire Editor Liz Jones Spills the Beans on the Weird World of Women’s Magazines”. The Daily Mail. 2006.
- Annalisa Barbieri. “Get Behind Me, Satan: Meryl Streep Brings Back Some Painful Memories”. New Statesman. 2007.