Welcome to the resistance, Miranda Priestly. Not even the die-hard loyalists of 2006’s fashion satire The Devil Wears Prada expected much from its return to the big screen: a “cerulean sweater” callback, certainly, alongside some washed out lighting and plenty of egregious product placement. All are, unfortunately, present in The Devil Wears Prada 2 – get ready to play a hypercapitalist Where’s Wally? with all the snuck-in Diet Coke cans. Yet the sequel has also seemingly come out of nowhere to deliver what might be the most trenchant, committed portrait made about the state of contemporary journalism.
In the film’s punch-the-air climax, Meryl Streep’s Miranda, the imperious overseer of Runway magazine, locks that X-ray vision of hers onto some gilet-fitted investor (BJ Novak) and lambasts the encroachment of AI into the media space as an affront to “human achievement”. It’s not exactly All the President’s Men, but we’re in a dire situation – it’ll do nicely.
