Movies: Breakup with the devil

Devil Wears Prada

The book was decent but a stretch to be good. A lot of verbiage around one idea, working for a fashion magazine sucks and writing for New Yorker is all high and lofty and for this, Andrea was willing to compromise everything. Truth is, working for Runway isn’t all that bad—even Andrea admitted it at the end of the book. While I am aware that Devil Wears Prada was a work of fiction, this realization still leaves one with a bad aftertaste in the mouth. Weisburger achieved fame and fortune solely based on her personal experience working for Vogue and Anna Wintour, two things she tried her best in the book to distance herself from.

No matter. The movie was a hit simply because the buzz and controversy it generated around the idea that Miranda Priestly was based (not so loosely) on the real-life editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine. To this end, the movie was OK. The book was a bit “bitchy” to certain extend, but at least it’s largely based on personal experience with some heart felt pain and some not-so-pretty truth about working your way up the ladder while crushing others whenever you can, the movie was masqueraded into a good-guys-win-in-the-end comedy by Hollywood. I mean it’s entertaining all right, and with all the high fashion as eye candy, who can complain? I just feel bad for Meryl Streep, a wonderfully versatile actress playing a cookie-cutter boss-from-hell. Even the few sprinkles of humanity in Paris when Miranda was coping with the divorce were quickly lost. Hollywood wants us to believe that Miranda is just no-hope. But it’s probably just a small project for her anyway… I really like Stanley Tucci’s Nigel and a few glimpse of Gisele. The writer, whatever his name was, what a sleeze ball.

The Break Up

The review was crap, but I actually like the movie a lot! While Jennifer Aniston was typecast again to play a metropolitan white-collar working girl with great apartment and even better looking shoes, I feel she played this role much much better and true to life. The conversation, which escalated into a fight by the seconds passing, over the number of lemons Brook had asked Gary to buy played out like a Déjà-Vu for me. Similar thing happened when Brook and Gary fought over Gary’s “want” to do the dishes… Quite spooky. I swear I had at one point or another had this conversation with Kam. It’s quite funny hearing and seeing it on screen in a movie theater, but all the agony and frustration. UGG!! Great job!

Tags: movies