The devil wearing Prada is much less devilish second time around

A little bit of background📃

It's been 20 years since the first Devil wears Prada film. I loved the first one, largely for Emily Blunt's sarcasm in her turn as ambitious assistant, Emily Charlton, and the thinly-veiled dig at Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue, played faultlessly by Meryl Streep in the form of Miranda Priestly. The devil wears Prada is an iconic film whatever your feelings about it, so I eagerly lined up for number two. Did it live up to my expectations? Read on to find out.

The devil wears Prada 2 | Australian release April 2026 | Viewed April 2026 | Directed by David Frankel | Main cast: Meryl Streep Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, Kenneth Branagh, Lucy Liu, Justin Theroux, and Patrick Brammall

The story📖

Twenty years ago, Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) left her position as an assistant at Runway to pursue a career as a respected (read "serious") reporter. We find her at the start of the sequel having achieved her dreams only to have the rug pulled out from under her as she and her entire newsroom are made redundant. At the same time, Miranda is under fire at Runway after a story is released accusing one of their brands of using sweatshop labour. Andy is then hired as features editor to inject some respectability into the magazine. The whole vibe of the film is that the magazine is struggling in a post-COVID world where print publications have lost their relevance and digital content and click metrics rule.

Meanwhile, Emily (Blunt) is now a senior executive at Dior and in a relationship with some idiot billionaire (Justin Theroux) who wants to take over Runway as a gift to Emily. From this premise the film then becomes all about saving the magazine and having a dig at billionaires. Thrown into the mix is a cool fashion show in Milan.

My thoughts on the film💭

OK, so it's probably fair to say that it's rare that sequels match up to their original. I can say with complete confidence that The devil wears Prada 2 is not a patch on the first film. Miranda is floundering, just as much as Runway seems to be. This makes for a solid premise for the film, but unfortunately it doesn't really go anywhere. It feels like the writers had a germ of an idea - to explore the obsolescence of print media (and high fashion?) and Miranda's decidedly un-PC behaviour - but didn't know what to do with it.

All three main characters from the original Runway team - Miranda, Nigel (Stanley Tucci) and Emily - look lost within the uninspiring story. There's a lack of character development and connection with the first film and the whole thing feels like a giant missed opportunity. Miranda and Emily have lost their sting and I almost cringed at some of their lines. They just didn't land the way they did in the first film.

The new players are woefully underdone as well. Lucy Liu's character, whom I assumed to be based on Mackenzie Scott who was once married to Jeff Bezos, is in the film to save the day by distributing some of her assets to worthy female enterprises. This part of the film doesn't work as it's kind of plonked into the story without context and isn't properly fleshed out. Miranda's new husband (Kenneth Branagh) and Andy's new love interest (Patrick Brammall) also feel shoehorned in and there's zero chemistry in the pairings. The whole Andy relationship subplot is pretty humdrum and adds little to the film. [Although bonus points for allowing Brammall to keep his Australian accent.] There's also a missed opportunity to do something interesting with The New Emily, Miranda's second assistant, and Andy's assistant, Jin. The whole assistant schtick was what made the first film so clever. Oh, and Anne Hathaway seems to spend the whole film running around breathless and acting a bit ditsy. That didn't jibe with her new "serious journalist" persona.

The best part of the film for me was the Milan fashion show. I was fortunate to experience the beautiful city in 2022 and loved seeing the Duomo and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in all their nighttime glory. Better still, the fashion show was held at the Pinacoteca di Brera, one of Milan's most significant sites and one of the most famous galleries in Italy. The gallery was founded at the end of the 18th century, in 1776, at the behest of Maria Theresa of Austria. The building itself was once a Jesuit college and is now home to the Accademia di Brera, a state-run tertiary academy of the fine arts, as well as the gallery. We visited the stunning gallery on our last day in Milan. Cool!

In sum📝

I was rather disappointed in The devil wears Prada 2. The film feels like a patchwork of good intentions stitched together to create an incoherent tapestry. Watered down Miranda and Emily were disappointing and I am still not sure of the point of the whole thing. A billionaire saves the day in the end, but is this the message the writers are trying to send? So many of the threads in the film had potential, but just didn't go anywhere and the film overall is underwhelming. I honestly think it deserves only two stars, but I am giving it three out of loyalty to the first film, the fabulous Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt, and Milano.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐