i’ve been wanting to write about this for a bit, because i liked it a lot, but i wasn’t sure what to say. this is a film i educatedly suspect none of you has seen, but it’s the summer film i’ve easily liked best so far. this is not saying much, but i actually think this is quite good. the story is a neat rags-to-reaches fable, with plain girl who becomes beautiful, evil step-mother (meryl streep in superb form), prince charming, fake prince charming, evil step-sister who turns out to be all right after all, and evil twins.
there is nothing wrong with predictable stories with predictable patterns, but this does have a few weaknesses, to wit: prince charming (hathaway’s live-in boyfriend) is as dull as an extra from fox TV central casting; ditto with fake prince charming, whose sleazy allure is so out of place (he’s supposed to be a successful literary writer), you dismiss him from second one. so much for the (straight) boys. luckily, the girls spark, especially meryl and the excellent emily blunt (my summer of love). anna hathaway, clenched between the iron jaws of these two brilliant actresses, manages to squeak through without embarrassing herself. she could be more interesting, but then again, she is really not supposed to be interesting. she’s supposed to be an average new yorker in search of a writing job. well, okay: since she’s into environmental writing and improving the world, and since this aspiration of hers turns out to have an important role in the film, she should be a little bit more interesting, but whatever.
hathaway and boyfriend hang out with a group of vaguely loserish (single) friends whose regular rendez-vous at the bar after work provide whatever it is this cinematic cliche provides in romantic films: reality check, after-the-fact bantering, etc. the problem is that this is not, really, a romantic film, but a film of self-discovery, so the friends don’t work, either.
what works? well, like i said, streep and blunt, but also stanley tucci, a supposedly gay man (we never truly learn) who befriends hathaway in the devilish magazine streep rules with an witch’s fist. streep’s character is very good. she’s strong, biting, mean, and funny in all the right ways, and she’s beautiful. so when she finally shows herself to be vulnerable, it’s really touching and revealing. as it turns out, [SPOILER] streep’s character is that of a powerful woman in an industry that has little tolerance for aging. [/SPOILER]. this is a good touch which deepens the plot, complicates streep’s character, and introduces a interesting element in the film. as the (not really) evil, less beautiful step-sister, blunt also brings to the fore appearance as the hallmark of female worth. [SPOILER] as hathaway supersedes her as the one streep trusts, blunt becomes more pinched and harried. her physical deterioration peaks with a devastating cold that not only turns her into a wreck, but brings her a shattering demotion. [/SPOILER]
this is the moment when you start wondering how the film is going to end. since you know hathaway won’t, after all, sell her soul to the devil (it’s not that kind of film), how is she going to recoup her goodiness without turning the movie into a cheese fest? i was impressed by the solution and found it clever. it made the film for me.
as for stanley tucci, his character is in many ways as tragic a figure as meryl streep’s. in spite of his obvious competence and intelligence, he has not risen in the fashion world as he might have, and, like streep, he’s not getting any younger. his sweetness, kindness, and flamboyancy add to his sad fate. like kitten of breakfast on pluto, he’s a man who survives on wry humor and resignation to losing. the combination of his character and streep’s is a revealing one: the aging gay man and the aging strong woman are alone and yet unable to warm each other’s beds (not in that way), even for a night.
the true romantic frisson of this film is between streep and hathaway. hathaway becomes beautiful for streep (certainly not for her boyfriend, who doesn’t like her new looks in the least bit), and streep responds with long, pleased gazes. streep’s commands and her put-downs felt to me flirtatious in an odd, defensive way, and hathaway’s eagerness to please does have an erotic tinge. since hathaway doesn’t give a damn for fashion or fashion magazines, it is clear that that she’s there only to get streep’s approval. there are a couple of moments when the two women are physically close (a party in new york, a party in paris), in which streep cocks her head towards hathaway and hathaway leans towards her in a way that looked intimate to me. and there is always some erotic energy between someone who’s brutally domineering and another who eagerly submits to the domination. [SPOILER] when, in paris, streep learns that her husband has left her and calls for hathaway to go to her room, streep’s vulnerability in her unmade-up face and hathaway’s gorgeousness made me long for (at least) a hug. that streep is quick to regain her coldness seems proof that one was coming.[/SPOILER]
so maybe this is a romantic comedy after all.
In what other way could they warm each others’ beds?
electric blankets? incontinence? sheets fresh from the dryer?
Streep is sublime . . . I probably enjoyed this film more than anything other “summer” movie I’ve seen in 2006. But mostly it was Streep: her line readings, her strength, her vulnerability, her fucking amazing combo of talent and technique.
I liked this film as well…and Gio’s erotic reading gives it an extra charge. But I did find it somewhat predictable in the way Andrea tames the boss from hell and finds her dream job in the big city, all because she’s some kind of earnest whiz just out of Northwestern. Of course, I can maybe cut the film some slack if we’re taking it as a kind of fairytale. I wonder what people think of the equation of fashion with art–Stanley Tucci’s character gives an impassioned speech about the magazine providing a forum for some of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. I thought the film could have done a bit more with the status of fashion as highly attractive yet repellent. The most tenderly nostalgic part of the film is the conception that two people, just out of college, could afford to share an apartment in New York City.
By mistake, as I was going to see Devil, I ended up seeing The Descent. I was thrown off, at first, by the spelunking, but I know so little about fashion that it seemed reasonable enough. Those crazy sophisticates! And when the pale screeching mutants appeared, all seemed well. Sure, I wasn’t sure which was Streep, but…
I kid, I kid. Go see The Descent. Actually, I may be the only horror fan here, right? If you like horror, your review would be as follows:
Fuck yeah.
FUCK….. yeah.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck…………………………YEAH.
Great good fun. And right in keeping with my love of entrapment. As Joe Bob would say, while heads may not roll, they do shatter, spurt, bust open. Lots of gorgeous mayhem, and a wildly cool claustrophobic set-up. The first 30 minutes are ridiculously effective, before we even see the monsters. After that, it’s mostly a thrill-ride, but still the only E-ticket I’ve purchased in this summer of sedate merry-go-round entertainments.
we watched the devil wears prada tonight, and i am shocked to come here and read that michael liked it. jeff likes movies about travelling pants, and gio thinks the italians play attractive football–in other words, they have no taste; but michael? this is an acceptable airplane movie and nothing more.
and, gio, you liked stanley tucci’s character? am i the only one sick of the homosexual with the heart of gold (a species that is apparently flourishing in the world of high fashion)?
i like hearts of gold in gays and straights alike, and i can never get enough of them.
in that case, i recommend jim carrey as the grinch.
Arnab, Arnab, Arnab . . . certainly there was a Steven Seagal action film screening OnDemand to keep you entertained last night. If you don’t watch out, one may have to lable you a closet misogynist (word is Mira Nair and Deepa Mehta concur). Come on dude . . . Streep was sublime in Prada. And can you really think of another 2006 “summer blockbuster” that was any better? That being said, I’m in no mood to see again just yet.
I didn’t say that Prada was the greatest film–only that Streep gives an interesting performance and the film is diverting–I did mention that it was entirely predictable. I thought there were some interesting ideas about fashion–though they were never developed. The Tucci character did puzzle me a bit–I understood we were meant to find him likable, yet I didn’t and I didn’t feel that it was particularly shocking that he didn’t get the magazine position at the end–I mean, live by the sword, etc. He’s cuddly AND he makes it in this obviously cutthroat business?? At the time the film choices were very thin, and at least I’d take this over some of the terrible action movies at the time. That’s all.
the one bit in the film that i thought had an edge was when streep cut hathaway down to size, explaining the connections between the worlds of high fashion and department stores. other than that it was all gum, no teeth.
i didn’t dislike the film but both sunhee and i were puzzled by the fact that it has been praised so much by so many people. does the fact that there may not have been many good summer films make this one any better?
Prada was pretty inoffensive, but I think we go too easy on this kind of middlebrow film, holding it to quite different standards from action movies, and we also go too easy on Meryl Streep, who really must take some responsibility for wasting her talent on this kind of movie.
Is it really enough that some snappy dialogue and a couple of semi-digested thoughts about the cultural and commercial role of fashion are enough to rescue this mess and garner the postive reviews it got? Just how banal do those thoughts have to be to classify Prada as an ideas movie? The bar is way too low. And Arnab is right about the Tucci character: why is this any less offensive than the trusty and wise black sidekick? At least Morgan Freeman graduted to some leading roles.
The usual excuse for the dearth of decent Meryl Streep movies is that female actors don’t get the same chances as they age. So we can all criticize Jack Nicholson for choosing to do schlock and dialling it in, but poor old Meryl Streep has no choice but to do Lemony Snicket, Manchurian Candidate, Adaptation and Bridges of Madison County, each performance more uninteresting and less subtle than the last. Sure, we would expect her to have fewer opportunities for good roles than a Nicholson, but it is hard to believe there are none. Compare her to Helen Mirren, for example: Comfort of Strangers, Prime Suspect, Gosford Park, The Queen. These were all characters Mirren made her own. Streep has made choices and, recently, they have been pretty bad ones. Yet we still convince ourselves that there is some nugget of fine acting in these usually overwrought performances. I have to say that I don’t see it.
Prada versus Under Siege? No contest: Seagal wins hands down.
This group has standards for action movies?
say it like it is, jeff! this group goes all gaga over crap all the time, y’all. and meryl streep is not english, chris. can you name an american actress over forty who is offered good parts, or parts at all? plus, she really was good in prada! this having been said, no one praised prada to the sky. it’s just that it was the summer and we were all depressed about the movies, then we sat down to prada and didn’t have to walk out. both i and everyone else who liked this film liked it cautiously. clearly, it’s losing sheen as it goes from the summer doldrums to the early winter bonanza.
I didn’t watch enough of Prada to dismiss it as thoroughly as I probably would have if I’d watched more of Prada, so I’ll sidestep the film itself.
I’ll disagree with Chris about Streep insofar as she has made some interesting choices–not always to good effect (the new Manchurian failed, but it was worth a shot), but often quite memorable (Prairie Home, a small but lovely turn in Angels in America, a great bit in Dancing at Lughnasa, and Adaptation in which I thought she was quite good in a seemingly-impossible role). Unlike Mirren, she kind of gets to do whatever the hell she wants, and of late she seems to enjoy comic character turns–I actually think she could be making new-accent sob-stories every three months, if she desired; she’s probably the only exception to Gio’s good point about American film and women of “that certain age”. (Meanwhile, wasn’t Mirren in Killing Mrs. Tingle and Calendar Girls? I don’t begrudge her the shit films, either.)
Stanley Tucci’s getting bashed, and–again–I haven’t a nice thing to say about his turn in Prada, but The Alarmist is pretty damn fine, and there’s a reason why everyone went gaga over the glut of good performances in Big Night; when the role allows Tucci’s fussiness to synthesize with a character’s flaws, he can be riveting. (I liked him in Daytrippers, too.)
Meanwhile, back to Chris’ point about the middlebrow: I agree wholeheartedly. I’m not sure quite how to define the m-brow, and I’m loathe to get into a debate grounded in aesthetics (bleah), but there’s a weird tendency to celebrate the well-crafted as if it’s a second coming rather than simple competency. I just power-skimmed through Match Point, and it struck me as a cinematic Hummel. I think it got raves because it was a Woody film that didn’t suck, and, well, generally it didn’t suck. Nor did it do much better than not-sucking.
And now I’ll bury a comment about Lonesome Jim, Steve Buscemi’s small black comedy about depression and small-towns and family, which did much better than not-sucking, and was really tuned to a different fork than your average film. The best thing about it is the inimitable Mark Boone Junior playing a disreputable uncle named Stacy, who demands to be called Evel, but there are lots of small pleasures. But maybe what I liked about it–as opposed to my 10 or so minutes of Prada and my power-skim of Match–is that its resistance to the well-made narrative allowed it, yes, to occasionally slip into confused tone or failed plot mechanics but also freed it up to be funnier, more oddly winsome, and and often surprising. A toast to the no-budget speed-shoot, continuity and the niceties of mainstream “good” films be damned.
Gio — are you sure Meryl isn’t English? She does those accents so damn well! Fair point, though Julia Roberts turns 40 next year. Rene Russo and Diane Keaton have not been offered much to sink their teeth into. Anyway, I only went after Prada because Jeff dared to criticize Steven Seagal.
I’d forgotten about Calendar Girls, which I never watched. It provoked the one argument about movies I have ever had with my mother. She insisted it was up their with the Godfather in cinematic history. I made vomiting noises over the transatlantic phone.
I find Meryl Streep more interesting now than in her Big Performance epic phase, where perhaps the emphasis was too often on what Mike aptly calls “new accent sob stories.” I thought the performance in Manchurian Candidate was pretty interesting–modelled reportedly on Reagan groupie Peggy Noonan. I would like to see an action film that re-invigorated the careers of post-40 actresses: could Tarantino get on that? save Sarandon from guest shots as sitcom moms, Fields from Boniva commercials, Spacek from the Hallmark Hall of Fame etc. And for the leads, I’d recommend Karen Black, Julie Christie and Shelley Duvall. With Catharine Deneuve as the mysterious European villain. everyone gets $20 million, too.
And Tarantino could be the guy to do it–Jackie Brown had an excellent performance by Pam Grier, and actually let the over-50 Forster and Grier have a great, sexy romance.
what didn’t you guys like in streep’s turn in the manchurian candidate? i thought it was fine. and what about the hours? i thought she carried the film.
my comment was only about the movie, not streep. i don’t find her any more or less mannered or willing to work in dreck than any other great actor/actress. but i did think nicole kidman’s prosthetic nose carried the hours.
I liked Streep in Manchurian–it was the movie that failed. (Although Streep in that film was always running second to Angela Lansbury’s utter command of the role in the first version….)
Yeah–I liked Streep in The Hours, too, ‘though I found that film less interesting than the novel, and the novel less interesting than Mrs. Dalloway (which I love).
I can’t understand why Arnab hates women.
If you want to be flummoxed by a film the critics have over-enthusiastically embraced, then rush off to see the capable and competent BBC 1 production which is currently masquerading as the critical darling of the year, The Queen. Mirren is good, yes (as she was in “Prime Suspect 7” and “Elizabeth I”), but if forced I’ll argue Streep’s work in Prada and Prairie Home Companion shows much greater range and flexibility when it comes to constructing a character for the camera.
the question is, who would win in a fight? helen mirren or meryl streep? what if mirren was riding a saltwater crocodile and streep a starving bengal tiger?
Why a starving bengal tiger? Is that some kind of slur against the good people of India and Bangladesh (the tiger is their national animal, yes)? Sure, give Streep the starving animal, she’s four years younger than Mirren so I’m thinking she could take her. Look, I’m biased. I think Streep to be the greatest film actor of the twentieth century (yes, better than Brando, better than Keaton, better than all of the boys) and if she had remained in New York she would have been the greatest stage actor of the century as well. Steven Seagal . . . well, I loved his turn as the feisty cook in Under Seige (really, I do, it was a smart die hard on a boat flick) but give me Streep’s Jill in Woody Allen’s Manhattan any day, and Seagal can be sent to the meditation room.
are we talking about michael keaton or diane keaton?
steven seagal can do more with his unibrow than he can with the rest of his face. how many of your so-called “great actawrs of the 20th century” can say that?
I was assuming we were talking about Buster…since, however competent they might be, neither Michael nor Diane strike me as in the running for best actors of the century….but until Streep can jump across moving train cars without moving a muscle in her face, I reserve judgment.