Ink Blotting - The Devil Wears Prada

Posted on Sunday, July 09, 2006 at 12:00 AM

The Devil Wears Prada

Meryl Streep isn't The Devil in The Devil Wears Prada. She's mean, egotistical, demanding, controlling and evil, but she's not big 'E' evil. She's not even very devilish, but she is very good... in the role. You grow to detest the character of Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) throughout the movie. Her attitudes and her foibles are keenly designed to instill vast amounts of bitter hatred in the audience. Critics applaud her portrayal to such extent that several have stated she'll earn award nominations for the part.

And it isn't like a critic to say something good and leave it at that. Every critic who commented on the quality of acting brought forth by Ms. Streep lamented the abysmal job done by Anne Hathaway. For most she seemed to simply ghost through the role, paling in comparison to the indomitable Meryl Streep.

I disagree. Anne Hathaway's character is human. Certainly she makes odd choices and her life seems rather pitched in one direction, she is nevertheless the window by which the movie is viewed through. Meryl Streep's character is 'the devil' in that she's just off the page of humanity and it's rather uncertain as to whether or not she's going to come back. Standing next to that sort of characterization it is quite easy to see how Anne Hathaway pales in comparison.

Fashion aficionados will ooo and ahh at this film, I think. I am not a fashion aficionado. I know that shirts go over the top half and pants go over the lower half. If the legs are too short and there is a strange hole between the legs - well, then I know I've gotten it wrong again. But given the beauty in the clothing Anne Hathaway takes to wearing and the style in which people are generally dressed (let alone Prada is in the title of the movie) it's a given that fashion will be important in this film.

The movie's major failing is that Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) has a dream. She wants to be a writer. She likes writing so much, in fact, that she turned down Stanford Law to go to Northwestern and take Journalism. But we are left with no understanding at the commencement of the film as to why Andy decides to accept a position in which she won't get to write at all. And then she stays there, for almost a year. The 'close friends' in her small clique all seem to be doing something along the lines of what they want - even if it is only prepping food in a lousy kitchen and not sous chef for the rich and famous. But we don't see Andy attempting to secure something, anything in regards to writing throughout the movie, until she finally realizes that Miranda Priestly cannot be saved from her own devilish attitude and has begun to see an inkling of the devil in Andy herself.

Though I greatly enjoyed this movie, and it gave this reviewer pause in his own life and the choices I was making, there isn't enough self-reflection in the piece to truly make it wonderful. Andy Sachs seems to just wander about the film, her decisions usually only the result of events placing her along a natural progression until it seems that's her only option. There are no great confessions to friends, no genuine heat to hearts, only fashionable conversations of little import. And that's the only detraction from the movie I could find.

3 stars out of 4

Kyle Gould is a University of Calgary Graduate in English devoutly trying to make the 25,000 dollar piece of parchment not just a glorified ink blot. Currently it would serve better as a Rorschach test. Feel free to throw some ink his way at wkkgould@hotmail.com.