The Devil Wears Prada 2: Hell Is A Color Story

I feel like I fell down and smacked my little head on the pavement!

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You guys. I feel like I fell down and smacked my little head on the pavement! Everyone is like, “The Devil Wears Prada 2 is a TRIUMPH or whatever!” Which, like, ok sure, it’s fine! Totally fine and enjoyable. A perfectly fine good ol’ time at the movie house. But also…kinda sweaty with all its callbacks to and overreliance on the first film’s structure, and especially in its contrivances to get the old band back together. Which unfold like so:

One day it was morning in Manhattan — where, unless I missed something, I guess Andrew Hathaway still lived somehow on a newspaper journalist’s salary in 2026 — and our all grown up heroine once again wiped the steam off her toothbrushing mirror and headed out into the city, which was now fully populated by visual references to the first movie: Turquoise belts everywhere! Banners touting Groundbreaking Florals for Spring! Etc!

See, she was on her way to a journalism awards, where she won a big prestigious prize for her serious newspaper writing. And that would have been all good and cowabunga, except that suddenly right in the middle of the Schmuletzer Schprize brunch, she and every journalist there was fired due to hedge funds or whatever. So, Andrew made a big impassioned speech about how JOURNALISM is IMPORTANT! Which is all right and true! But she was still desperately unemployed.

Meanwhile, that night was also the big Vogueaway magazine gala, where trouble was also brewing, because I guess some other probably fired now journalist had just done an exposé on how Vogueaway did a big puff piece story on a fast fashion brand that used sweatshops, which everyone hates having to know about. It was a PR nightmare, and Vogueaway editor-in-Streep Miranda Priesthood was in deep doo-doo with Schmondé Schmast honcho Irving Somethingorother and his small adult son BJ Novak.

So, to punish Miranda, BJ Novak hired decorated but unemployed journalist Andrew Hathaway as Vogueaway’s new features editor to rehab the magazine’s credibility.

The next day Andrew strolled right into Miranda’s office and was like, “Remember me? I work here now again!” And Miranda was confusedly like, “Who are you?” but in a way that conveyed brain damage instead of haughty disinterest in her former employees. Then she was like, “Cool fine whatever, we might as well get Emily Blunt involved too right away.”

See, because Emily Blunt was now the head of stores and also advertising, I guess, for Dior, which was the only advertiser Vogueaway had left due to THE CURRENT MEDIA AND ADVERTISING ENVIRONMENT AS A RESULT OF THE INTERNET? And Dior was totes out of sort re: the sweatshop story, so Emily Blunt made Vogueaway do a big feature story on HER in exchange for Dior’s continued ads. And Andrew was like, “But JOURNALISM, pay-for-play, etc!” And Miranda was like, “LOLzzz, grow the eff up, snowflake!”

Then there was a whole montage about how Andrew Hathaway’s journalism stories about who knows what weren’t performing the numbers and impressions or whatever on Vogueaway.com, which pleased Miranda due to her wanting Andrew to get canned. But then Andrew got a big cover feature profile on Lucy Liu, which was important because she was rich and divorced from the botox embalmed corpse of Justin Thereaux, a doofus tech billionaire.

That also pleased Miranda, so she invited Andrew to the Hamptons to party with Kara Swisher and Tina Brown and I think a bunch of sports people maybe? Which meant that Kindly Openly Straight Actor Stanley Tucci had to give Andrew another makeover. He was all like, “Hamptons! QUIET luxury!” And I guess that’s why everyone in this movie was forever in greys and taupes and pinstripes — which all somehow looked really great and also kinda shockingly boring all at the same time.

In the Hamptons, Mirada was in a great mood due to rosé-all-day, and she was drunkenly like, “Anderss! Yoush’re so good as your job [BELCH] an’ I’m abouda get ssa big promoshun!” And then they hugged and did bong rips with Jenna Bush Hager.

So everything was going great, UNTIL! Irving Rabbits suddenly collapsed dead at his 104th birthday party before announcing Miranda’s promotion to Global Creative Something Something Nonsense Position of Power. And then BJ Novak brought in all these consultants who were like, “No more chauffeurs and unlimited budgets! Downsizing, etc. etc.!”

Now Miranda was on her backheels, her empire crumbling around her, so she went home and had a sad hear-to-heart with her pointless husband, Sir Kenneth Branaugh.

And it was pretty much at this point, after watching Streepsly kinda flail and exhibit humanity and have actual conversations with people for an hour, that I had a REALIZATION: If the first Devil Wore Prada was kinda sorta pretty much a movie about Anna Wintour — or at least what it is like to be within the orbit of someone like her — the sequel is…absolutely definitively not. Which is fine, I guess, because obviously, Meryl Steep was never doing a straight-up impersonation of Anna. But in the first film she at least conveyed the former Vogue editor’s icy reserve and unshakable authority. In this new one, though, that authority has been diluted by [gestures at present day media industry, broader culture, etc.] everything. Miranda’s missteps have somehow stuck, and Streep has chosen to let her character’s uncertainty and vulnerability show, unlike Wintour who has somehow weathered it all and continued to project the same unshakeable poise and imperiousness that she always has. This new iteration of Miranda Priestly is largely unrecognizable as a version of Wintour, and I would hazard to say even as the character Streep played in the first movie. Which is fundamentally disappointing and unsatisfying.

Anyway, back to the movie, where Andrew Hathaway was also concerned that downsizing would mean she would get fired again too and she would have to start a Substack. So, she was like, “We have to save Vogueaway, a thing I now care about due to it being the only job left for me!” But Miranda was like, “Why bother?” because I guess she was maybe depressed?

But Andrew was bothered! And she would bother! So she went to Emily Dior Blunt, who was also conveniently boyfriends with Justin Thorax, billionaire MedSpa victim.

“Let’s get Justin Theraux to buy Vogueaway to save my job!” Andrew said. And Emily Blunt was like, “Sure, why not.”

But also, Andrew had her own Plan B just in case the other scheme didn’t work out, which was that she would write a tell-all book about Miranda and sell it to her Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Rachel Bloom, for $3.5 millions of dollars.

So, then everyone had to go to Milan for Fashion Week or something, and because of McKinsey downsizing, they all, including Miranda, had to fly coach, which was another moment where I personally was like, “This movie is so unserious, and DISRESPECTFUL of us, the audience, expecting us to buy that someone that rich can’t afford her own first class airfare!”

Anyway, Milan was basically a whole long montage of fashion shows and cameos, including actual Anna Wintour. Meanwhile, Andrew and Emily Blunt took a boat to Justin Bezzoux’s island to do their Succession, which was a success! He would save Vogueaway by buying it with for sure no strings attached.

Except then one day Miranda looked at Andrew and was like, “I sense betrayal in you…” And it was super unclear whether she meant the Theroux business or her book proposal. Of course, Andrew assumed it was the Theroux-down, so she went scampering off to grab Emily Blunt away from her brunch with Donatella Versace’s cameo so that they could both explain their plot to Miranda.

But Miranda was like, “TWIST! Emily Blunt hath played you, bitch!”

See, the whole thing was that Emily Blunt actually hated Miranda now because she never gave her a real job at Vogueaway, so she was going to have Justin Theroux fire Miranda and install her as the editor-in-Streep.

“Bwah ha ha ha ha,” Emily Blunt said, and disappeared in a plume of smoke and ash.

“What do we do now?!?” Andrew pleaded with Miranda. “Also, why didn’t you say anything about how treacherous Emily Blunt was until just now!?!”

But Miranda was just like, “Go change your stupid clothes.”

Then the next morning, for reasons I don’t recall but maybe had something to do with Kenneth Branaugh again, Miranda showed up at Andrew’s hotel room with a plan to defeat Emily Sanchez Theroux, which was: Get Lucy Liu to buy all of Schmonde Schmast. But for their plan to work, they had to go to Lucy Liu’s island and do a Succession with her, which meant they had to leave Milan right in the middle of the big Vogueaway fashion extravaganza, and Miranda was like, “I cannot do that!” And Andrew was like, “Let Stanley Tucci host it! He is your most loyal minion!”

“My…most…loyal…friend,” Miranda realized for the very first time, and did some gratuitous emoting at Stanley Tucci in appreciation for his lifetime of openly straight service.

Also, Lady Gaga was there doing a song. Congratulations to Lady Gaga fans the world over!

So, Lucy Liu bought Schmondé Schmast, because she was trying to give away all her bazillions to worthy causes which = a failing luxury magazine publishing company. Everyone’s jobs were saved, except for Emily Blunt, who got dumped I guess by Justin Theroux and had to go work at Coach instead of Dior as punishment for her hubris. And Miranda told Andrew that she should for sure write her tell-all book and get that check, because magazines are still totally fucked and who knows how long they could both still work at Vogueaway.

“Maybe someone will make a movie out of your book and Emma Thompson can play me!” Miranda said. “And I could wear Prada to the premiere, bwahahahahahaha!”

Oh, and also this whole time, Andrew was dating some pointless man named Colin From Accounts, so they ended up happily ever after. Until one day, Emily Blunt, blonde now for no reason, was like, “Let’s be friends?” and Andrew promptly dumped poor pointless Colin to go be lesbionic with her.

And so, having weathered the storms of late stage capitalism etc, all was once again right with the Vogueaway family, who had triumphed due to their fervent belief in the importance of JOURNALIM and MAGAZINES, two things that will for sure definitely be with us forever!