More "Pretty Woman" than "Working Girl," The Devil Wears Prada really lives to give its angel a high-class makeover.
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So stupendously funny at times that she (Streep) nearly salvages the whole thing.
When the satire stays focused on Streep or her snooty Brit assistant (Emily Blunt), "Prada" is malicious fun. But the central story about how smart, idealistic Anne Hathaway, as Miranda's drably dressed new assistant, loses her soul in pursuit of success and great shoes is dramatically anorexic.
Frankel has cut, pasted and rejiggered the novel, mostly for the better. As adapted by Aline Brosh McKenna, The Devil Wears Prada is crisper, less self-righteous and mercifully shorter than its intermittently funny but interminable source.
Sometimes actors get parts so rich that they almost can't help but make meals of them. Playing a frosty, high-powered editor in The Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep turns the role into a four-course dinner and shows up with her own dessert...But it's hard to care about what's going on whenever she's offscreen.
The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt
Takes place in the world of haute couture. And that pretty much sums up the movie. Otherwise, it would be just another Queen of Mean, boss from hell movie. But, oh, what delicious fun Meryl Streep and her conspirators have with that world.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
The story is glossy junk begat of just-plain junk anyway: Lauren Weisberger, who wrote the hiss-and-tell roman à clef best-seller on which the picture is based, was herself an assistant to Wintour.
Rolling Stone by Peter Travers
Sinfully funny.
Streep single-handedly elevates this sitcomy but tolerably entertaining adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's bestselling 2003 roman a clef about a personal assistant's year of chic hell under the thumb of the dragon lady of the fashion world.