Anne Hathaway's "DWP2" Character, Meryl Streep's Acting Prowess, and the Film's Celebrity Cameos

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]The blockbuster that is the Devil Wears Prada 2. The Hollywood Reporter box office from over Mother's Day weekend.

[00:00:09]Devil Wears Prada 2 sews it up. Victory over Mortal Kombat 2 crosses 433 million globally. It is well on its way to doing close to a billion in box office. I am sure sure we will get Oh, Hollywood Reporter says it's um becoming the first Hollywood studio film of the year to clear the two billion mark in worldwide ticket sales. So at least close to a billion in the US. Um have you seen it? And uh I mean clearly we're going to get a third, but have you seen it James? And what are your thoughts?

[00:00:45]>> Huge success for Disney. I think Disney now is the first studio to pass two billion. I saw that tame in preparation for this. You know what's funny? I have to admit you asked me to talk about movies. I have not seen this movie, but I have a list of questions for you cuz I I have a soft spot for legacy unnecessary sequels being a superhero fan of myself. Um, so do you mind if I have a few questions for you? I'm assuming. Okay.

[00:01:11]>> How many unnecessary cameos were in this film? Well, you know, I do think the Lady Gaga one was, you know, it was there was a cute nod to um an an interlude with uh Lady Gaga and Miranda Priestley in which Gaga talks about the favor trading that goes on in the industry. You know, she she says they say to each other, "Oh, we hate each other, but you need me and I need you, and I'll never get another cover unless I perform at your event in Milan." But um it was a it was it felt like a lengthy music video had been like jacknifed in there. Um and then I read about Oh. Oh god. Okay. My least favorite cameo. James, I thought of you when I saw this. So there's a part of the film where Miranda invites Andy to her Hampton's house to meet all of Miranda's fancy media world friends.

[00:02:01]among them none other than who I find the supremely unlikable Carara Swisser.

[00:02:10]>> When I think confection that the the confection that is the devil wears Prada, the love letter it is to fashion in the industry. This could have been a very different movie. I surprised myself because I really enjoyed it, but it could have been a very different movie.

[00:02:24]It could have been a spikier movie. It could have been a darker movie. It could have been a meaner movie. I've never ever experienced a fashion industry in which nobody has an eating disorder, a drug problem, or rampant amounts of debt to keep up with everybody else. But here we are. Well, how are they going to cross the $4 billion $400 million mark without keeping it fan service and really sequelitis, right? So, how many direct callbacks to the original were there in this movie? Is it just one after another?

[00:02:56]>> There were many. There were Easter eggs and references, but it was done very artfully. You know, it's one of those sequels where you do not have to have seen, you know, that's the template for a sequel, right? You don't have to it's it's Better Call Saul. You're enriched if you've seen Breaking Bad first, but you don't have to watch them in order. I will say the screenplay was very very tightly written. It was aditly done. Um Ailen Brash McKenna who >> um created with Rachel Bloom. Did you ever watch My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend? The WB show?

[00:03:27]>> I I have seen it. Yeah, that show's hilarious.

[00:03:30]>> It's brilliant. There was nothing like it. And she is the mastermind behind it.

[00:03:35]Rachel Bloom actually has a small role in Devil's Prada 2. It was really nice to see her there.

[00:03:41]>> Um but yeah, no, you're absolutely right. It has to be like you are kind of dropped into like a warm bath. You're like luxuriating in a warm bath with these characters. The um Anne Hathaway character is as unlikable as um you know it's like on the rewatch with the with the original Devil Wears Prada which I know you've seen. Every time you see it it's like well who's really the villain here?

[00:04:04]>> Is Miranda really the villain? Is Nate Andy's boyfriend really the villain? Is Andy really the villain? And there's this exchange in Devil's Prada, too, where Andy has begun dating this very age appropriate, successful, smart, nice, solid guy. He's a contractor, but not just any contractor. He guts and redo buildings in Brooklyn and turns them into luxury apartments. One of which she rents with her new salary, right? Working for Miranda again. She gets word that like her former outlet has been just like everybody's been fired. has been leveled to the ground and she's commiserating with him over a glass of wine in set apartment that he designed and says to him, you know, it's nice that you feel bad, but like get real. Journalism is way more important than what you do. Like she's a total and it's just treated in the movie like it's a little bump on the way to the their their full realization as as a great love story. I I love it. So, I really think of this movie as I think of like the new Spider-Man movie with Tobey Magcguire coming back and this is just that version for a different group of people in terms of this sequel. Two final questions for you. Who was the new villain that united Streathaway? I have to imagine there's a new we talked about villains and did they save media in this movie?

[00:05:25]>> Interesting question. Okay. By the way, to your call back to the um Spider-Verse and the Spider-Man um was it No Way Home? What was it? The one where Toby's in. That movie is so clever. I think that movie succeeds both like commercially and as a real piece of art.

[00:05:42]And there was another trailer uh before Devil Wears Prada for the new Spider-Man, and I was like, I will I would totally go see that in a theater.

[00:05:50]Totally go see that in a theater. Um, the villain who unites is um Justin Thorough playing a version of Jeff Bezos. Um, he's got way too much filler in his face. I don't know if this was deliberate or not. I would imagine it was a a misstep on Justin's Durm's part.

[00:06:07]Um, but Justin plays him as really dumb, which Jeff Bezos most certainly is not.

[00:06:13]Um, print media lives to see another day through some backroom wheeling and dealing by Andy. But what's really I'm not I'm not spoiling anything. If you haven't seen the movie, this is this I'm gonna talk about the final shot being a reference to a beloved romcom. So if you don't want to know, I would say silence the show right now. The final shot, James, is an an a a direct reference to the final shot of Working Girl. Do you remember the final shot of Working Girl?

[00:06:44]>> I I've certainly seen that movie. I do not recall, but I >> Okay. Mike Nichols directed uh starring Harrison Ford and uh Melanie Griffith and Sigourney Weaver. And Melanie Griffith is a girl from the outer burrow. She's from Staten Island trying to make her way up in corporate New York City and it's a Cinderella story and all she aspires to is to getting into like that office like getting an office where she is working in finance and she she gets it at the end of the movie and the camera pulls back from her outside the office window in a skyscraper and it pulls back and back and you see she's one of a million of millions people in New York inside a building having realized their dream, but what does that really get you, right? Cuz you're a person in an office and blah blah blah.

[00:07:32]And it's such a lovely reference though to working girl. It's a smart one. It's a savvy one, but it's also a lovely reference to it.

[00:07:40]>> Probably a lot easier to get that shot now with the amount of drones that we have flying around the city. But I love that. That's nice. So, I do have a time and a place for for well-earned sequels.

[00:07:50]This to me was it felt unnecessary.

[00:07:53]That's why I didn't jump to see it. But if I'm hearing correctly from you, Marine, you did enjoy it. It is worth seeing.

[00:07:58]>> I surprised myself. It's worth seeing.

[00:08:01]And I think what it gets to the commercial success of it. I was dubious because they really kind of tried to critic proof it. You know, they were only screening it for influencers and the whole press junk. It was all about the clothes. It was really nothing about the content of the movie. The trailer was very vague as to what the actual plot was, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. And I will say, you know, this I believe is the first femaleled summer film in a ve I'm gonna say probably I think Pretty Woman was a summer film, you know, but since the days of Julia Roberts, like My Best Friend's Wedding or the Sandra Bulock romcoms, like there's been a veryow period where femaleled films just were not considered viable summer blockbusters. And I think the success of Devil Wears Prada too puts the lie to that.

[00:08:53]Barbie would be the other one, but you know, if you want to compare Barbie, >> that's a that's a great point. I mean, Barbie felt to me just such like a hollow commercial s like brought to you by Mattel like that. I know they were sort of packaging it as this great feminist exper like I did not feel that way at all.

[00:09:11]>> Weirdly, this one this Devil Wears Prada 2 feels like it has more heart and soul than Barbie did.

[00:09:19]So final thing for me on this movie, you know, one of my hot takes. I think Mel Streep is incredibly overrated. I mean, >> I love this conversation >> just and everything she does has to be anointed as a really important piece of work that she's a part of. You know, certainly has hallmarks in her filmography, but let's be honest, like hasn't been relevant for some time. Did she turn in a Did she revisit this character and add anything to this character or was it just a cash grab?

[00:09:52]>> She, you know, the the the the the trouble I had with this in terms of the Andy Miranda relationship, which is the primary relationship like Kenneth Bronna is in the movie as Miranda's life partner and like he exists there as like a he's the realization of a female fantasy, right? He's rich. He's handsome. He's kind. He's just there to be in service to her, you know? That's it. He does. He's not fully fleshed out.

[00:10:20]He's two-dimensional fully. But, um, there's no real there's no real softening of Miranda. You know, she's still the same person. Um, there are nods to wokeness. There are nods to DEI.

[00:10:33]They have um outside of her office one of her assistants. Now, James, this would still never fly at Kai Nast, a morbidly obese young gay man. The morbid obesity. He would be in the factchecking closet. I'm sorry. He would not be out front as one of, you know, I think of um the two assistants that Anna Wintor has as um the two lions outside the New York Public Library, the main branch. you know, they're they're there to protect and as bastions and as repres and that's what those two assistants recommend.

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