The Devil Wears Prada 2 ★★★
- 2filmcritics
- 8 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Availability: Showing widely in theaters nationally and internationally. Distributed by Disney+ and Hulu, streaming expected some time in August. See JustWatch here for full purchase and rental online availability.
Let Hollywood Be Hollywood
The stars come out, at least 2-1/2 of them, in this second iteration of a 20-year-old immensely popular, now film franchise. Meryl Streep is—what can we say—riveting as the Devil, make that Miranda Priestly (aka Anna Wintour), editor-in-chief of Runway (aka Vogue). And Anne Hathaway is alternatively subservient and cleverly action-oriented as Andrea “Andy” Sachs, her onetime assistant, now Features Editor. The 2 stars carry the weight of this mostly interesting script. The ½ belongs to Stanley Tucci, who surprised us by inhabiting a more than 2-dimensional role as Nigel, Miranda’s right-hand man and fixer. His final scene warrants the demerit.
Few do imperious as well as Meryl Streep, editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly.
Besides the consistently good acting of Streep and Hathaway and the luscious costumes/clothes of the billionaire class, “Prada 2” carries a fair amount of political baggage, most of it treated lightly. Among the targets, in addition to the top centile, are the desperate state of journalism and puerile world view of tech bros.
The film opens with a bang, thrusting the audience into the current political scene, as journalists from the investigative magazine Vanguard receive awards at a banquet while their phones tell them they’ve been fired (ala Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post). Andy is one of those awardee/unemployed journalists, the situation allowing her to be hired back at Runway, this time with an award in hand, giving her a touch of gravitas to take on Miranda.
Neither of the protagonists is a coherent, believable character.
The storyline depends on the imperious editor softening up, becoming more humane in her treatment of employees and learning from Andy, which Miranda does reluctantly and then somewhat receptively, until relapsing into the jerk she is. Streep and Hathaway work well together as they migrate from enemies (at least that’s Miranda’s perspective) to a team, with some help from Nigel (Tucci) along the way. Neither of the protagonists is a coherent, believable character. Andy spends too much time pandering to Miranda and finding “love” to be credible as a talented, feminist business woman. One often wonders how this Miranda could run a company.
Vanguard editors face an early challenge when Dior threatens to pull out its substantial ads after the magazine has run a puff piece on a clothes manufacturer using sweatshop labor. New Features Editor Andy Sachs (Anne Hathway, left) must fashion a response satisfactory to Editor-in-Chief Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), with minimal help from Priestly's fixer, Nigel (Stanley Tucci).
The script strains under the weight of the implausible: Miranda does not remember who Andy was, nor her other onetime assistant Emily (a poorly used Emily Blunt, though “May the bridges I burn light my way” is a darn good line). Presumably this lapse in the brilliant Miranda’s memory is a sign of her haughtiness; more than that, it seems a twist to get the characters back to their relative positions 2 decades ago.
You'll see more outfits in fewer seconds than you thought possible as Nigel prepares Andy for a weekend at Miranda's house in the Hamptons.
The script also labors to engage its meatier political valence. It does a fair job at presenting the decline of print media and the concomitant threat of unemployment in journalism. But it throws in sweat shop labor, critiques of working women, DEI (some of the better laugh lines are Miranda’s assistant Amari [Simone Ashley] telling her in stage whispers what she can and cannot say), feminism, patriarchy, and classism without dealing with them in much depth or consistently, to the point of trivializing what should not be trivialized.
“Prada 2” is a women’s world.
“Prada 2” is a women’s world. There are no worthy men. The husbands/partners of the 3 leading ladies—of Miranda, Andy, and Emily—are dull at best. Even Kenneth Branagh, brought in to be a helpmeet husband to Miranda, can’t shine next to Streep. And the real estate developer designed to be Andy’s love interest (Patrick Brammall, known for TV roles), is, well, blah. He’s useful for telling the audience she’s published a 4-part series on the Federal Reserve (hardly credible) but for little else. There’s a lot of coupling going on, but the only chemistry is between Miranda and Andy.
Writer Aline Brosh McKenna seems not to have processed thoroughly the impact of chatbots and generative AI.
The irritating techno manosphere is embodied in nepo-CEO Jay Ravitz (B.J. Novak) and Emily’s boyfriend, Benji Barnes (Justin Theroux), a mashup of Elon Musk, Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. The script makes them out to be less visionaries than doofuses, spouting shibboleths about cutting expenses (meaning people) and the inevitability of technological “progress,” no matter how dangerous. “You just have to get out of the way,” says Benji. A critical planning session with a dozen consultants takes place improbably in the packed and public company cafeteria (“Do we have one of those?” asks Miranda when invited by Jay). One late scene sets a negotiation for buying out the company at a villa on the shores of Lake Como, evoking Alexander Skarsgård’s Elon Musk-type role in the TV series “Succession,” though not nearly as intensely. Writer Aline Brosh McKenna seems not to have processed thoroughly the impact of chatbots and generative AI, barely mentioned here.
Then there are ethics, brought up repeatedly but not meaningfully. At the same time as she’s working for Miranda and Runway, Andy, inconsistent with her principles, is negotiating with a publisher for a tell-all book. All is resolved when Miranda tells Andy she’s aware of this betrayal (echoing the boss’s line in “Prada 1”: “You thought I didn’t know,” about the coup planned against her) and to go ahead and publish it, sordid personal details and all. Really?
For the cameos (Lady Gaga, Heidi Klum, and Donatella Versace, among the many), the vamping of 2 of Hollywood’s best, and the eye-candy of clothes and accessories—just as we’re gagging over the Met Gala hosted by the Gilded Age Bezos couple—David Frankel’s “The Devil Wears Prada 2” is highly entertaining. As a story that brings up—only to drop or fail to take seriously—important value debates in our current culture, and that requires suspension of disbelief in character development and plot devices designed only to set up a sequel, it’s sorely lacking.
Despite “Prada 2’s” flaws, if they make “Prada 3,” we’ll gladly buy tickets, and hope we don’t have to wait 20 years.
She says: The script seems conflicted about women and work. It wants to privilege work: “I love work…you must too,” says Miranda. But Andy’s response is muttered. Stand up, people!
He says: I’m glad Ted Turner never made “Gone with the Wind 2.”
Date: 2026
Director: David Frankel
Starring: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt, Justin Theroux, B.J. Novak, Kenneth Branaugh, Simone Ashley
Country: United States
Language: English
Runtime: 119 minutes
Other Awards: 1 win and 1 other nomination to date (for anticipated films)