Still a fantasy, though a less mealymouthed one than The Devil Wears Prada, this follow-up to the 2006 Meryl Streep-Anne Hathaway buddy fashion comedy nods to the real world in interesting ways—fast fashion, corporate restructuring, the implosion of journalism—while still remaining charmingly light on its Gucci-clad feet. (Gucci makes shoes, right?) After a tortured amount of plot machinations, The Devil Wears Prada 2 reunites Hathaway’s Andy, who has recently been laid off from her hard-news journalism job, with Streep’s Miranda Priestly, whose Runway magazine is facing its own challenges in the new media environment. (Screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna adds the nice touch that Miranda doesn’t remember who Andy is.) Before long they’re off together, alongside acerbic art director Nigel (Stanley Tucci), to fend off vulture investors, defend fashion as an artistic endeavor, and stage a runway show in Milan—all while trying to get clicks on the Runway website. It gets clunky in terms of plotting—everything resolves with what can only be called a Liu ex machina—but The Devil Wears Prada 2 knows that its zing lies in the interplay between its two stars (and Tucci) and so it hands over much of the movie to them. Zooming out beyond the performances and considering the context in which this reheat is being released, the increased (and increasing) wealth gap in the West casts a shadow over the proceedings (here is where Prada 2 gets mealymouthed). At one point, Andy poses a pointed question about the cost of a luxury purse and the assumption that the average consumer could afford it. Not long later, she breezily delights in an invite to Miranda’s Hamptons beach house (“I’ve never Hamptoned!”), kicking off a sequence of well-heeled fashion and celebrity cameos that can only be called status porn. The Devil Wears Prada 2 doesn’t have that much to say about any of this, ultimately landing instead like a “let them eat cake” distraction for the multiplex crowd.
(5/5/2026)
