THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA

A naïve, style-free editorial assistant thinks she has little to learn from her tyrannical, world-famous boss at a top fashion rag. But she’s wrong.

CAST: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt, Adrian Grenier, Simon Baker

DIRECTOR: David Frankel

SCREENWRITER: Aline Brosh McKenna

“Everyone knows that Meryl Streep is the high priestess of drama, but she never gets enough credit for her comedy skills. That should change with ‘The Devil Wears Prada,’ a sinfully funny, deliciously glossy take on the 2003 best seller by Lauren Weisberger, who denies writing it as a poison-pen letter to her former boss, Vogue editor Anna Wintour...Streep teams up hilariously with Anne Hathaway as Andy Sachs, the ‘smart, fat girl’ (she's a mere size 6) who applies for the job as Miranda's junior assistant at Runway magazine.” --PETER TRAVERS, Rolling Stone

“Never raising her creamy voice, Meryl Streep is scarily sensational as magazine editor Miranda Priestly, the tyrannical, all-powerful arbiter of New York fashion. 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 (and boyfriend Adrian Grenier) in pursuit of success and great shoes is dramatically anorexic.” --DAVID ANSEN, Newsweek

“What makes the film more than fairly good fluff is Streep's performance. It would have been easy for her to portray Miranda as a raging caricature, but instead she plays it for truth. The cadenced purr of her voice has steel in it - she's a lot scarier than a shouter would be. The manicured and Manolo'd Miranda with her rock-solid coif is a woman who values control above all things. When she lets her guard down near the end and talks to Andy about the breakup of her own marriage, the fissures in her armor show and for a moment she becomes bracingly human. Is there anything this actress cannot do?” PETER RAINER, The Christian Science Monitor

“Miranda is played by Meryl Streep, an actress who carries nuance in her every pore, and who endows even her lighthearted comic roles with a rich implication of inner life. With her silver hair and pale skin, her whispery diction as perfect as her posture, Ms. Streep's Miranda inspires both terror and a measure of awe...she is a vision of aristocratic, purposeful and surprisingly human grace. And the movie, while noting that she can be sadistic, inconsiderate and manipulative, is unmistakably on Miranda's side.” --A. O. SCOTT, The New York Times

“Streep is Priestly, and I mean that from the topmost swoop of her divine, leonine silver coif to the polished tip of her pointiest Manolo. As she throws her PETA-disapproved fur jackets around, she exudes fearsome power with every shriveling glance she tosses over the tops of her reading glasses, every despotic command she murmurs. Streep has noodled around with comedy before...But we haven't seen our Meryl like this until now, relishing the role as if it were the swellest Best of Everything achievement award a 13-time Oscar nominee could receive...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, and her novel is greasy with pride in her own ‘integrity’ and disdain for both her boss and the magazine whose paychecks she was presumably not forced at gunpoint to collect.” --LISA SCHWARZBAUM, Entertainment Weekly

“Meryl Streep is the queen and she rules ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ with frosty command, a one-woman corrective to global warming. In this droll comedy Streep is Miranda Priestly (rhymes with beastly), absolute dictator of Runway magazine, which is to fashion as the Bible is to Western religion...Though Anne Hathaway is the central figure and looks lovely in a series of increasingly chic Chanel ensembles, Streep dominates the movie in the great comic performance of her career...Setting her face into a mask of composure that suggests Darth Vader by way of a Kabuki actor, the most expressive of American actresses shows how power is expressed in the lack of facial and vocal expression. This makes the brief moment her mask comes off chillingly poignant and eerily funny.” --CARRIE RICKEY, The Philadelphia Enquirer

"Meryl Streep has quietly established herself as queen of the summer, first with her delectable turn in 'A Prairie Home Companion' and now with her breathtakingly underplayed performance in 'The Devil Wears Prada.' Streep single-handedly elevates this sitcomy but tolerably entertaining adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's bestselling 2003 roman a clef...What the book's Miranda achieves with hysteria and frequent screeching outbursts, the film's Miranda manages with withering glances and devastatingly dismissive looks that could wilt poison ivy. Streep's silent reactions are priceless, and when the lady does speak, it is in dulcet tones that demand extra attentiveness but then reward the listener with barbs from hidden needles. Coutured to the nines and a vision in platinum gray, Streep is a wonder." --TODD McCARTHY, Variety

“Streep makes it work. Streep makes it fun. Best known for her dramatic brilliance, Streep has done strong comedic turns in the past, and this performance is a reminder of that, and then some. Miranda is riveting -- when she's in the room, every muscle fiber of every other human being in her general proximity is acutely aware of, in awe of and afraid of her presence. When Streep's on the screen, she has the same effect on her audience; she totally commands every scene.” --JENNIFER FREY, Washington Post

“The snaky Streep wisely chooses not to imitate Vogue editrix Anna Wintour, the inspiration for the book, but creates her own surprisingly believable character. Instead of delivering Cruella de Vil tirades, she terrifies with a sigh. ‘That's all’ becomes a catchphrase the way Streep delivers it, in a breathy passive-aggressive sing-song. She freezer-burns the screen.” --KYLE SMITH, New York Post

“What gives ‘Prada’ its juice is Miranda. Not since Cruella De Vil ordered a coat made from Dalmatian puppy hides has the screen welcomed as heartless a fashion diva. Streep plays Miranda with both relish and restraint. To the editor's terrified staff, she's like an approaching hurricane, as scary to anticipate as to face. She can draw blood with a withering glance or a curt dismissal...The movie is no thigh-slapper, by any means, but veteran TV director David Frankel (‘Sex and the City’) has given it a consistently whimsical touch. It has a couple of fine supporting performances (British actress Emily Blunt is particularly good as Miranda's overeager first assistant) and that tour de force from Streep.” --JACK MATHEWS, New York Daily News

“Thanks to Meryl Streep, whose performance is eerie perfection, ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ is often quite funny. But it's more than that, a film that reveals an entire vibrant and sleazy world that most viewers would never have a hint of, much less experience...To watch it is like being entertained while getting an anthropological crash course.” --MICK LaSALLE, San Francisco Chronicle

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