Caffeinated Clint
If you can overlook the fact that “Prada” is merely “Princess Diaries : The Tweenage Years”, you will enjoy it. It isn’t a demanding film to watch – coughing up plenty of laughs, good performances (Streep perfectly underplaying the wicked witch role), and a kick-ass soundtrack. It’s comfort food for the hungry, MTV-generation, cinemagoing crowd.
Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Simon Baker, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, Adrian Grenier, Tracie Thoms, Rich Sommer
She may have incorporated a little peekaboo cleavage into her magic act, but that doesn’t mean Anne Hathaway still isn’t opening with that same, comfortable, pull the rabbit out of the hat trick. She may be older. She may be (even more) sexier. She may even be a better actress now, but there’s not a moment in “The Devil Wears Prada” where Hathaway is doing anything but showing everyone a trick that they’ve seen before.
In her breakthrough film, “The Princess Diaries”, the bubbilicious brunette played a frumpy outsider who finally got her big break – thanks to a hoity superior –turned princess, who was able to spit in the faces of those that made her life hell, whilst she juggled both a new look, new bank balance and new troupe of admirers. What she ultimately discovered was that it was the friends that were in her life before that really mattered.
Granted, “The Girl Wears Prada” was a book before it was a Hathaway vehicle, and for all intents and purposes may not have even been intended for the young actress, but that doesn’t disguise the fact that by playing the role, Hathaway’s merely treading ground that she’s stepped on before. Because of that, it plays a little tired than what it would’ve had another actress played the role. Again, she plays the scruffy introvert. Again, she gets a makeover into blossoming hottie. Again, she comes into some cash. And again, she has to come to the conclusion that those in her life now, aren’t half the friends – or lovers – as the ones that were there when she had no fashion-sense or dollars in her account.
Hathaway is the naïve, unfashionable, wannabe journalist who comes to New York and scores a job as the assistant to one of the city’s biggest magazine editors, the ruthless and cynical Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep). She ultimately becomes the matron’s right-hand woman, but at a price.
After an impressive turn in the recent arthouse smash “Brokeback Mountain”, it would’ve been nice to have seen Hathaway do something just as meaty. But she’s nothing to gnaw on here but sugar-coated candy. Not that that’s a bad thing. In fact, it’s quite an entertaining film – and it’s largely due to Hathaway. She’s not just hot, she’s talented. And that’s probably why it stings so much to see her repeating herself.
If you can overlook the fact that “Prada” is merely “Princess Diaries : The Tweenage Years”, you will enjoy it. It isn’t a demanding film to watch – coughing up plenty of laughs, good performances (Streep perfectly underplaying the wicked witch role), and a kick-ass soundtrack. It’s comfort food for the hungry, MTV-generation, cinemagoing crowd.
If, on the other hand, you haven’t seen “The Princess Diaries”, then you’re in luck. Go to it. You’ll enjoy this even more than those that have [seen the latter], and will inevitably find Hathaway’s performance both fantastic and fresh.
(Extras Unpreviewed)
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Reviewer : Clint Morris
