The Devil Wears Prada

"Oh my God, don't tell me you just said THAT,"  said Emily, the first assistant, who made faces at Andy, the new second assistant. "You've never HEARD   of Miranda Priestly? And what is THAT you're wearing, your grandmother's skirt from her CLOSET?"

In the movie, recently released on DVD, Anne Hathaway, as Andrea, is the new second assistant to Miranda Priestly, the semi-fictional editor of Runway Magazine, loosely based on Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue.  Lauren Weisberger, author of The Devil Wears Prada, interned at Vogue. The character of Andrea Sachs is loosely based on experiences in author Weisberger's life. In the movie, Meryl Streep plays Miranda Priestly. 

In the beginning, Andrea loathes the fashion industry, publicly states she has no interest in the job that "a million girls would die for", and is laughed at by first assistant Emily, a character with a thick British accent and a haughty attitude that rivals Miranda Priestly's own attitude and demeanor toward her underlings.

Revolving around Miranda are 'the clackers," the gaggle of stiletto-wearing assistants who cluster around  the "high priestess"  of the fashion industry, who fawn at her every move and who jump to her impetuous commands in trying to meet them, or, who at least attempt to survive the job without being fired, losing one's sanity, or becoming so ill they can no longer do the job.

Andrea, known as Andy, begins as a frumpy young woman wearing a  blue sweater,  an ill-fitting long, plaid skirt, plain black tights and nondescript black flats. Her dark hair is straggly and she is as seemingly without makeup as she is without guile when she asks the makeup assistant (who is wielding an eyelash curler) what she is holding: "What is THAT?"

The makeup assistant titters in derision as she recounts this episode to Emily. As first assistant, Emily is looking forward to winning the coveted perk of joining Miranda on the annual trip to Paris, the fashion show to best all fashion shows.

In a scene in which Andrea claims that fashion is irrelevant, Miranda cuts Andrea to the quick by saying:

"That Cerulean blue sweater you're wearing originated a few years ago as the color of the season, brought out by top designers. From there, it filtered down to the department stores in imitative copies of designer originals. From there, it further filtered down to the clearance rack, where you undoubtedly found THIS sweater. You have participated in this multimillion-dollar industry, and yet you claim that fashion does not matter, that how one dresses or the message that one sends is irrelevant."

Miranda's staff then tries to outfit Andrea in Runway's sample sizes, (which are size 0 and 2, comically referred to as the new 2 and 4).  Andrea volunteers her own size as 6, to which they snicker in reply, "Oh,  THAT's the new 14." 

Andrea is as out of place at Runway as any fictional character fresh out of The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University could possibly be. Author Lauren Weisberger is a graduate of Cornell University, having received her BA in English in 1999, shortly before she landed the job at Vogue.

Andrea survives because of her strength and intelligence, showing up previous 'second assistants' who failed to meet Miranda's impossible demands.

When Andrea earns the task of delivering the 'book' (the monthly mockup of the current issue) to Miranda's house, her gullibility gets the better of her and she makes the ultimate faux pas: she speaks to Miranda's twin daughters, who convince Andrea to bring the book to private living quarters (as first assistant Emily did, or so the duplicitous twins convince Andrea), where Andrea walks in on Miranda and her second husband having an argument.

Never to be outdone in any manner, Miranda forces Andrea's hand: "My daughters want to know what is in the next, UNPUBLISHED Harry Potter book. Bring it to me by 3 p.m. today, or don't bother coming back at ALL. " 

Like the "clackers" Andrea so despises, Andrea then runs around Manhattan with her T-Mobile phone attached to her ear, where she is seen dodging Yellow Cabs and city buses and gives up more than a modicum of her self-respect to meet yet another impossible Miranda Priestly demand. 

As luck would have it, Andrea finds the phone number of a writer friend on a city bus. She phones him and he pulls strings to obtain the elusive Harry Potter manuscript from J.K. Rowling. The details of this imaginary escapade are vague, as this would not happen.

In the movie, Andrea reassures Miranda that the twins are reading their own copies of the manuscript on the train home, and that the copy presented to Miranda is yet a third copy, merely for her edification.

Meryl Streep impeccably delivers Miranda Priestly's high-handed haughtiness, which drips with displeasure at the slightest hint of imperfection, real or imagined.

Andrea does begin to change. She does her hair in an upsweep, dons a chic black suit that shows an appropriate and appealing amount of décolletage, clatters around in black stilettos, and learns to use makeup and an eyelash curler.  

She ignores her boyfriend and misses his birthday party, due to a benefit she is suddenly called upon to attend.

Slowly, she earns Miranda's trust, and it will be she, not Emily, who will receive the coveted trip to Paris perk.  

It is Andrea's job to deliver the news to Emily, that it will be she, Andrea, who is Paris-bound, and not Emily, who remains laid up in the hospital, after being hit by a car.

Emily cries in her annoyingly supercilious manner: "It's not FAIR - I haven't eaten in WEEKS and you eat CARBS!"  

The story ends happily, and if you like chick lit of this type, I do recommend this movie, now in DVD.

What is more interesting perhaps than the story line itself, are the comparisons that have been made between fiction and real life characters.

The author's education and job were described above, with similarities to the book and movie. The movie itself departs from the book in some minor ways. Some of the characters have different names, the opening scene of the book differs from that in the movie, but these changes are minor and do not alter the tone of the movie.

Though Weisberger denies that Miranda Priestly is based upon Anna Wintour, it is widely believed to have a factual basis.

Just as Meryl Streep dons sunglasses indoor and wears a white Hermes scarf upon her person at all times, (a Miranda Priestly signature), Anna Wintour's signature is the wearing of sunglasses indoors.

Miranda Priestly and Anna Wintour are both of Jewish background, neither is college educated and both have children of previous marriages.  

Other notable similarities between the real-life Wintour and the fictional Priestly:

Both are trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, both are unable to remember the names of people who work for them, both wear size 0, and the Runway offices of Miranda Priestly are virtually identical to the Vogue offices of Anna Wintour.

Even the corporate culture is said to be mirrored in the book and movie. The fictional publishing company of Elias-Clark uses company ID cards to track employees, much like Vogue publisher Conde Nast, and the company cafeteria contains a large salad bar and a comparably miniscule "Carb Corner", reflecting the aversion to fatness and weight gain, and the idolatry of supreme thinness.

Despite critics who claimed the book was a gossipy, thinly disguised roman a clef written in a plain style without much literary merit, the 2003 novel remained for six months on the New York Times Bestseller List.

The Devil Wears Prada book was translated into 27 languages and sold in more than 31 countries worldwide clearly, women want to read this kind of chick lit.  

As a movie, The Devil Wears Prada grossed more than $125 million in the U.S. alone. In September, author Weisberger and director David Frankel jointly accepted the first-ever Quill VarietyBlockbuster Book to Film Award.

Last month, the movie was nominated for several Golden Globe nominations, and the Fox Television Network announced in October that they have acquired the rights to a sitcom series, based on the book, set to air later this year.