The Devil Wears Prada 2 Review
There exists, in the firmament of contemporary cinema, a rare species of sequel that does not merely exhume its progenitor for nostalgic plunder but instead converses with it — a respectful interlocutor in dialogue with its own past. The Devil Wears Prada 2 is precisely such a film: a sartorial successor that opens with the choreographed déjà vu of its 2006 forebear, only to gently, knowingly, subvert it.
Consider the opening tableau. Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), once the bumbling ingénue negotiating Manhattan’s coruscating cruelties, now walks into our frame with an unmistakable poise — the gait of a woman who has earned her real estate on the pavement. It is the same shot, almost identically composed, yet the protagonist within it has metamorphosed. This single, deceptively modest directorial decision telegraphs everything the film intends to do: to honour its antecedent while quietly, confidently, surpassing it.
The film, mercifully, does not dawdle. Within minutes it lobs its first narrative grenade at the audience with surgical insouciance — an opening salvo that announces, without apology, that this is no laggardly homage. And then arrives Miranda Priestly, Meryl Streep returning to her most gloriously glacial creation, and the intervening years collapse into a single shiver. To witness her again is to be hurled, willy-nilly, back into the year the saga began. The first ten minutes alone earn the film a perfect five.
That this sequel mirrors the rhythms of the original yet feels neither derivative nor exhausted is, in itself, a minor miracle of screencraft. Logically, emotionally, narratively — it triumphs on every front.
Emily (Emily Blunt), that erstwhile lieutenant of misery, returns; this time she is enthroned at Dior, and her reaction upon glimpsing Andy is a masterclass in unguarded recognition. She is, frankly, shocked. The moment that follows — Emily, of all people, brushing her nose against Andy in something approaching affection — produces an audible gasp. It is a wow moment in the truest, most disarming sense of the word.
Miranda, blessedly, remains Miranda. She is precisely the woman we left, and we love her unreservedly for it. And then — the cynosure of every fan’s anticipation — Stanley Tucci materialises as Nigel, and a wave of nostalgia washes over the auditorium with the inevitability of tide.
But here is the most piquant revelation, the one I shall guard with critical chivalry: Miranda no longer flings her coats at her acolytes. The reason is delicious, and I shall not spoil it. Suffice it to say, you must see the film for yourself. I am simply too thrilled to tell you why.
The unveiling of the new Dior boutique is the kind of sequence that produces a tickle in the bones — that effervescent shiver one feels when cinema and couture conspire toward something altogether transcendent. Whatever quibbles one might harbour elsewhere, the excitement here is at least the equal of the original; in several stretches, it is unequivocally greater.
In truth, this iteration is the better film. There are scenes in which one feels almost a participant — sharing the air with Miranda, Andy, and Nigel, an invisible fourth at their table. It is at once nostalgic and electrifying, a paradox the film resolves with insouciant ease.
A small digression, if you will permit me: in considering the ensemble, I cannot, for the life of me, summon a single Indian actor who could plausibly inhabit any of these roles — with one striking exception. Karan Johar is the spiritual analogue of Nigel; the resemblance, in poise and pungency, is uncanny.
Just as one settles into the film’s seductive rhythm, it delivers a shock that travels, quite literally, down the spine. Irv’s son strides into the Runway offices in the wake of his father’s passing, and the visual incongruity is delectable — he resembles nothing so much as a Silicon Valley chief executive crashing a couture show. Oddly attired, palpably out of place, the audience around me registered the same wry amusement. The first narrative detonation had barely settled when a second came hurtling behind it, and what followed was a near-overwhelming engagement — the kind that pins one to the seat.
On performances, there is little to dispute and a great deal to celebrate. Every actor inhabits their role with a craft that, to be candid, renders most contemporary Bollywood ensembles peripatetic by comparison. There is nuance in the smallest tilt of a chin, in the merest flicker of an eye.
Miranda has changed. The change is unmistakable, and it is unsettling in the most rewarding way. Why is she so altered? Is there some Machiavellian current stirring beneath that platinum coiffure? As the film unspools, one’s curiosity — to borrow from Carroll — grows curiouser and curiouser.
There is something almost magical in the way the picture communicates through its faces. Every micro-expression, every tightening of a jaw, every almost-smile, is freighted with meaning. Both films are, in the most precise sense, aligned with the temper of their respective epochs — the original a chronicle of mid-aughts ambition, the sequel a meditation on what that ambition has since become.
I shall declare it before the credits have even rolled in my memory: this is a ten on ten.
The denouement is a thing of unadorned elegance — simple, restrained, and yet quietly damning, revealing, with a glance and a gesture, exactly who is who. Andy’s love story, threaded delicately alongside the central drama in both instalments, has been placed with such tender precision that, even as the film draws toward its close, I find myself craving more of this Devil and her Prada.
In sum: this sequel walks exactly like its predecessor, yes — but it speaks, indubitably, better.
Five stars. Without hesitation.
