The Devil Wears Prada 2

Eager Andy, Broken Miranda, and Open-Concept Hell - A Summary

Two decades after we all watched Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) toss her phone into a Paris fountain, our girl is back in New York as a respected journalist, only to get laid off by text message during an awards ceremony. Naturally, this leads her back into the clutches of Runway magazine, where Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) is currently fighting off a scandal for running a puff piece on a brand called SpeedFash (a name so predictably "first thought" it feels as if it were written in five minutes) that uses sweatshops.

To fix the magazine's credibility, big boss Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman) bypasses a reluctant Miranda to hire Andy as features editor, dropping her directly into a beige, light-wood, open-concept corporate nightmare. It’s a modernized, HR-sanitized hellscape where Miranda is forced to physically hang up her own coat. As Andy navigates the digital pivot to clickbait, she butts heads with Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt) now a high-powered Dior executive rocking blue eyeshadow and a neck scarf, while trying to lock down an interview with Sasha Barnes (Lucy Liu), the fabulous divorcée of a Silicon Valley billionaire.

Just when Irv promises to make Miranda global head of content, he pulls a straight-up Don Geiss from 30 Rock by collapsing and dying at his 75th birthday party. Enter his son Jay (B. J. Novak), who freezes Miranda's promotion and threatens to gut the company. Cue a chaotic sequence of high-stakes calls, Hampton parties, and elite cameos, from Marc Jacobs and Donatella Versace to Lady Gaga doing top-tier seated mirror-face acting.

When Emily tries to orchestrate a buyout with her tech-billionaire boyfriend Benji (Justin Theroux), Miranda catches her in the lie, drags Andy into the crossfire, and delivers the ultimate verbal execution: "You’re not a visionary, you’re a vendor." Realizing Benji plans to replace the entire staff with AI (an existential threat Miranda addresses with a tearful, graceful "meh"), Miranda instructs Andy to get Sasha to buy all of parent company Elias-Clarke instead, a genius twist in my opinion.

They pull off the deal, leading to a heartwarming moment where Miranda passes the baton to Nigel (Stanley Tucci) a Milan gala, and Sasha officially grants Miranda her promotion. Back in New York, a re-energized Miranda encourages Andy to write her tell-all book, rewards her with a nicer office, and returns to her throne with a renewed imperiousness, while Andy wraped in the same blue sweater from the first movie, just better jeans and a stellar undershirt, walks off to the iconic DWP score.

My thoughts

Runway now lives in a beige, light-wood, open-concept office space. It’s painfully accurate to 2020s corporate culture, but so, so boring. Where is the pop of color? Where is the camp? I wanted something vibrant, swinging for the fences like an old episode of Ugly Betty. Instead, we get a sanitized aesthetic to match a sanitized corporate workplace.

Meryl Streep’s acting remains unmatched. In an offhanded scene discussing how AI is coming to crush the entire creative industry, Meryl delivers her line with such graceful, tearful-eyed apathy that it perfectly captures the bleakness of the tech-bro future. Her stellar performance against a mediocre script reaches a fever pitch later when the plot forces Miranda into middle-seat coach and act demure and anxious at a dinner party. It’s so wildly out-of-this-world and against character that my suspension of disbelief snapped like a toothpick.

Between the corporate chaos, we get another iconic "shopping in the closet" sequence to prepare for a trip to the Hamptons, followed by a parade of famous cameos at the party. It’s during this trip that we get a moment of realness in the kitchen. Miranda tells Andy about her upcoming promotion. It’s so sweet, but again feels almost too out of character, but maybe that’s just what a glass of chilled Rosé on a hot day does to Miranda’s soft underbelly, but it also felt as out of character as the flying commercial.

The supporting cast carries most of the comedic weight. Caleb Hearon and Simone Ashley are absolute standouts as the new assistants and the film’s running joke about corporate tightening the belt by cutting free clothes and corporate meals out is funny in a deeply non-funny, real-world way.

For the most part, the fashion was pleasing to the eye. If you thought two decades of fashion evolution would tame the sartorial madness of the Runway universe, think again. We get Andy upgrading her iconic cerulean sweater into a hyper-structured, high-end knit, Emily serving sharp executive realness in head-to-toe Dior, and Miranda Priestly terrorizing the corporate boardrooms in custom, floor-sweeping Balenciaga and Carolina Herrera gowns.

What makes the wardrobe pop this time around is how real-world fashion royalty got in on the action. Instead of settling for knockoffs or nameless props, major luxury houses threw open their vaults, showering the production in archival couture and current runway pieces. Between the high-profile gala looks and the constant parade of real designer name-dropping, the film turns every frame into a flex, proving that while corporate media might be collapsing into a beige open-concept void, Miranda Priestly’s wardrobe remains entirely untouchable.

Not everything works, though. At one point, Miranda's outfit at an event features a piece of garish silver hardware wrapped around her neck that is aggressively not a Miranda Priestly choice. There are also one too many grey suits for my liking,

The Verdict

The Devil Wears Prada 2 was a perfect puff piece follow up to the first movie and had just enough surprise, fashion, and one-liners to keep my off my phone for 90 minutes. You can tell the cast had an amazing time filming the movie, the press tour was a pleasure to witness, and it's crazy how good everyone still looks. If you haven't seen it yet, take the time with a glass of wine, you won't regret it.