August 2006
Liz Miller
hollywood madam
The Devil Wears Prada
My copy of The Devil Wears Prada was passed onto me by a
friend after she'd finished, and the pages are now curled and warped,
because I dropped it in the bathtub while I was reading it. Not on
purpose. No. Of course not. It's not a bad book, except of course
for the part where it's poorly written and its protagonist is kind of
hateful. It really just... slipped out of my hands.
The frothy tale of a young woman cast into what she considers a
circle of hell (and the real world considers the offices of a fashion
magazine) hangs on the notion that the magazine's editor-in-chief is
a fire-breathing ball of hate, a most loathsome personality. Based
on Lauren Weisberger's experiences working for Anna Wintour, editor
of Vogue, it's two hundred and fifty pages of therapy and
catharsis -- for Lauren, at least. What the casual reader gets is a
quick little brain vacation to a land where pretty clothes rule
supreme, everyone is beautiful, and the bad guy has little horns
drawn on her head.
Is it any surprise that it was scooped up for adaptation?
Had the beginning of July been any cooler, I might not have seen
Prada, but the sun shined down and I fled to a matinee. My
reasoning was that Meryl Streep has never done a bad movie (well,
except for Cookie's Fortune... and Music of the Heart... and One True Thing...), fashion is nice to look at, and
I respect Vincent Chase's
choices as an actor (though I think Aquaman can do better than
playing the love interest of the The Princess Diaries girl).
Besides, Stanley Tucci! Everyone loves Stanley Tucci!
Especially when Stanley Tucci's character, using the words of the
script by
Aline Brosh McKenna, single-handledly fixed almost everything I hated
about the book.
See, beyond the limitations of its genre, my major problem with
The Devil Wears Prada is that the main character mopes and
gripes and groans her way through the entire book, railing like
Malcolm X against the unfair oppression she bears as a result of
taking a prestigious job in an industry she considers beneath her.
Sure, the woman she's working for is weird, anal, demanding and not a
very good human being. But that's certainly not a rare thing in the
world, and it's frustrating as all hell to read a book about a girl
who can neither put up or shut up. Andrea's bewilderment over
Miranda's behavior grows weary by page 50, and when Andrea creates
yet another opportunity to prove her superiority to this foul
industry in which she works... Perhaps the reason the book fell
into the tub was because it bounced off the bathroom wall first.
However, in the movie -- god bless you, movie! -- Anne Hathaway pulls
this I-went-to-Northwestern-and-I-care-about-the-third-world-and-what-the-fuck-do-you-mean-get-coffee crap for a little while. Then, at
the end of the first act, she goes to Stanley Tucci's character,
who's been mentoring her off and on, and complains about not being
able to do this crap job and boy, she must be a moron if she can't
even do this, right?
Stanley Tucci then calls her on her shit.
Well, what he does is soliloquize a bit about how fashion is the new
modern art, and tell her that if she's not interested in it, then she
should quit. Because there's no point in sticking around if she
doesn't care, and the fact she doesn't care is what's keeping her
from succeeding, and it's unfair and insulting to all the people who
DO want to work in fashion for her to hold that job. (It's so great.)
Stanley Tucci's fashion-is-important monologue confuses the overall
message of the movie and comes a bit out of left field. But he could
have quoted Mein Kampf and I'd have forgiven him, because he
totally calls her on her shit, and once he does the movie is actually
watchable. Stanley Tucci opens his mouth. The angels sing.
Because once freed from self-pity, Andrea becomes a half-decent
protagonist, determined to succeed because she's chosen to be
there. And her commitment to success gives the film a new focus,
shifting to a Wall Street-esque morality tale about greed,
ruthlessness and betrayal (albeit with cuter shoes). I can't
remember the last time I saw a movie about a young woman where her
career, not her love life, was the focus. It's kind of
awesome in that respect, and it's a place the book is never really
able to go, because Lauren Weisberger can't hear how she sounds over
the noise of her own whining.
Perspective is a funny thing. Sometimes you get it through a
carefully-worded conversation over sushi, or an unguarded glance in
the mirror. And, sometimes, you get it when your roman a clef
novel is adapted into a movie starring Meryl Streep.
Either way, it's a beautiful argument in favor of adaptations. Sure,
a novel can be such a beautiful expression of the individual. But
sometimes that individual needs a punch in the face.
