Streep plays the devil… oops I meant to say “boss” …

“WHO IS that sad little person? Are we doing a before and after shoot that I don’t know about?”

Thus is Andy Sachs greeted on her first day as an intern at glossy Runway magazine in The Devil Wears Prada, the latest film to look behind the scenes of the fashion world. Granted, her sky-blue cableknit jumper and frumpy plaid skirt is not the most winning combination for her first day behind the most fashionable desk in Manhattan, but even so, Andy’s critics are more than a little harsh. Well, they would be: Runway employs the bitchiest witches in fashionland.

Happily, Andy has the magazine’s cavernous fashion cupboard at her disposal, and is soon transformed into a power dresser extraordinaire. The film, wardrobed by Patricia Field (the stylist responsible for the looks of Carrie and co of ‘Sex and the City’ fame, views like a condensed version of the international catwalk shows, with eye candy by Valentino, Gucci, Calvin Klein, Chanel and, of course least I forget, Prada and many more.

When Andy commits a particularly heinous faux-pas, instead of being fired, she is “punished” by being ordered to supply the unpublished manuscript of the next Harry Potter book. When she finally delivers it to her boss’s desk, instead of being thanked, Andy is met with a frosty: “One copy? What are the twins supposed to do with that?”

In one scene, Miranda carpets her for failing to find a private jet to fly her home in weather conditions which have grounded all other planes. “I took a chance. I hired the smart fat girl. But you ended up disappointing me more than any of the others.”

Anyone who has ever been lambasted by a boss or back-stabbed by a colleague will sympathise.
 
Apart from the overly-saccharine love story running through the film (boy meets girl, girl meets fashion, boy goes off girl for being superficial), my only other criticism is that Andy meets far too many “straight men” at the fashion parties she attends. In real life, there simply aren’t any!