The Devil needs a plot

Continuing my now seemingly monthly schedule of posts (I will likely get back to Spider-Noir, but it was as uninspiring as noted), I once again was propelled by an inquiry after watching a 20-year-old film in anticipation of its just-released sequel. The film in question is The Devil Wears Prada, a David Frankel production that I had long been completely disinterested in because I knew the type of film that it was: the erroneously-named "brain candy" because it doesn't actually encourage you to use the organ in question. We sat down to watch it yesterday at a friend's place because we're planning on watching said sequel (innovatively titled "The Devil Wears Prada 2" on Monday.) In the end, my suspicions were proved accurate and the 20 year wait could have gone on much longer with no loss to be known.

The film is based on a novel by Lauren Weisberger who had once worked as a personal assistant for Vogue editor, Anna Wintour. Most people assume that the book is a roman à clef as a result and Wintour has accepted the similarity between herself and Meryl Streep's character in the film, Miranda Priestly. Priestly, the tyrannical magazine editor whose presumed focus and drive on making her magazine, Runway, the best it can be in the highly competitive fashion industry is about as stereotypical a role as I've ever seen Streep take and leaves me questioning what really interested her, not least because the rest of the story is as thin as the paper it was printed on. (This was back in 2006, when people still used paper.) To wit: Idealistic young woman looking to do "serious" work as a journalist instead demeans herself to participate in the fashion world, only to absorb all of its tenets (style over substance!), alienating her friends and lover before finally realizing that that world isn't for her. The End. Pretty bow on top included (We are talking about fashion here.) You could map out the progression of this story inside the opening five minutes of the film and precisely nothing was surprising or interesting along the way as you traveled in your straight line from A to B. The story doesn't challenge you, the characters do nothing but fill their assigned roles and most of it is a demonstration of how to take an industry which supposedly thrives on innovation and taking chances and depict it as traversing the safest, most non-controversial path possible.

The cast is no different in this respect. Outside of Streep's underplayed and restrained performance (likely to allow the other actors to more fully fit their stereotypes), Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci don't bring a whole lot to the picture other than walking in their assigned paths. Indeed, I thought Hathaway was really miscast in this role, since it seemed to call for someone who could emote more at the injustice of the treatment she was receiving, rather than passively endure it as either the price of paying the rent in Midtown or because she knew she only had to keep playing this part for another 60 minutes of screen time and it would all be over. You can see the little touches of casting and writing designed to both be more "inclusive" (Hathaway's character graduated from Northwestern, in the Midwest, rather than Brown as in the novel in order to make it not entirely East Coast snobbery (Fashion is global!)) and, unfortunately, less so as, with the lone exception of Tracie Thorns, everyone in the cast is not only White but also apparently straight. In the fashion industry. The fact that they're all upper middle class to upper class Yuppies and very conscious of their assumed station in life just makes it that much more repellent. I'm all about stories about characters that are not the type of person you'd like to meet on the street. I write many of them. But I also want my difficult/dangerous/nasty characters to be interesting and none of these people are. They're mostly just contemptible, not only for what they assume about their lives but how all of those assumptions make them crucial to the existence of modern culture and society. You simply don't understand. They have to be snobs because, well, that's the business!

Obviously, I am not the target audience for this kind of thing, even if I was inclined toward films that ask you to "turn your brain off and enjoy." My version of "enjoy" is a story that asks me to think about why it's happening and who these people- these humans -are. But none of these people are actual humans, despite the late, faint attempt to convince everyone that Priestly still is one, even if she can't bother to learn her assistant's names or be conscious of the fact that they have personal troubles (aka life), as well (the "humaniziing" scene being Andrea having to emotionally extend in sympathy for Priestly's impending divorce.) That attempt to make Priestly likeable is couched in the assertion that she has to be "The Devil" because she's a woman in her highly competitive industry and if she were a man, everyone would simply look up to her/him for doing what needs to be done to succeed. I have no illusions that there are many male executives who are every bit as contemptible as Priestly in any number of industries. I have no interest in getting to know them or watching a film about them, either, as they remain, just like her, terminally uninteresting.

All of that said, I will still be sitting down in front of the sequel, if only to satisfy the curiosity of whether Frankel and writer, Aline Brosh McKenna, has learned anything in the past 20 years. All of the main cast are along for the new venture, as well. One would hope that people like Streep, Hathaway and Stanley Tucci are conscious of trying to do something new and/or different but with a huge audience out there looking for "brain candy", my hopes are not high.