Tuesday, October 03, 2006
The Devil Wears Prada
Tuesday night at Sydney's George St movie house. The 500+-seat Cinema 7 is nearly packed. Mainly women. The trailer had tantalized. You just knew "The Devil Wears Prada" was going to be a smash. Flick to this morning's takings reports, and there it is: already at #1 in Australia.
Nearly $5 million in less than a week. Juxtaposed, perhaps poetically, at #10 is the somewhat anti-corporate "A(m) Inconvenient Truth", taking less than $2 million in 3 weeks - still quite successful in Australian terms.
Had Meryl Streep, however, done an Ali Gore and toured down under in synch with the film release, then ... . Well, let's just say noone would be mangling her or her film's name.
While Gorat has hogged much recent cellulo-political intriguing, Streep has shown a whole nother generation why a good few "oldies" regard her as their all-time favourite actress. Academy Award nomination a-coming? Plus possible mon cherie.
3 or 4 significant others at the acting nucleus of the film might also be honour-bound. The costumes are of course par excellence (and the product placement shameless), the storyline funny and flowing, the one-liners pearlers.
Anne Hathaway's transformation from anti-fashionista to butterfly is unforgettable. The catalyst for that is an amazing little speech from Streep. She nails the young high fashion new-chum (and would-be rebel) when said rebel smirks. Smirk was directed at apparently pedantic deliberations over an outfit colour scheme. Hathaway (and we) are then astringently advised of the hand-me-down place of unwitting anti-fashionistas in the greater scheme of (clo-)things, with reference to the history of the particular shade of blue in Hathaway's sweater.
I loved the soundtrack, but you may not. Madonna's "Vogue" gets a tickling, and you can't help but cast your mind to the managing editor of "Vogue" magazine when it does. She who some point the finger at as the ... base ... character for Streep's role.
That character - Miranda Priestly is her name - is a little different from the one portrayed in the best-selling "' Devil Wears Prada" book. In the latter, they say, she is a ruthless monster with absolutely no saving grace. The Hollywood version romanticizes her up a couple of moral notches. She's still a hellcat, but with a dash of humanity.
Even Hathaway feels that dash: she sternly tells a (Streep-loathing) suitor: "If she were a he rather than a she, you'd be admiring 'his' business instincts, instead of reviling her as a 'bitch'". Or words to that effect.
Which is probably meant to be one of the film's poignant moments, and it is. It may not, however, ring entirely true for the film audience. Many of us will seamlessly segue Michael Douglas in "Wall Street" to Streep's noughties version of the complex corporate anti-hero.
The latest film is definitely worth a look, regardless of your interest in the consumer high-end. Douglas's Gekko fetched a following, irrespective of a particular interest in high finance. Miranda Priestly could easily finish up as a similar, if more fashionable, type of icon.Three and three-quarter stars (of a possible five).
