Since I had previously read the novel of the same name on which this film was based -- typically disposable light reading -- I didn't come to this movie with particularly great expectations. The book was written by an erstwhile lackey of Vogue's fashionista Anna Wintour and the author's venom managed to leak over each page; her story is of an ambitious and talented young graduate (based of course on herself), who forsees a brilliant intellectual future, having to subject herself to the whims of an autocratic editor of a high-fashion magazine -- the relevant roles taken here by Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep. Now just about any non-anorexic young actress could have played the Hathaway role and I guess she did a reasonable job of the serious soul being seduced by the surface glamour and the demands of the job. What in fact saved the movie from being totally pedestrian was the casting of Streep, who makes the editor a far less one-dimensional monster than the same character in the book. As I have written previously, perhaps I am softening with the years; while Streep used to annoy the hell out of me with her "actorly" skills, I now find that I am able to admire her total immersion into a part. One could read her "monster" here as a woman whose determination hid a core intelligence and a masked, yet tangible, vulnerability.
Some praise is also due to Stanley Tucci playing the magazine's fashion director and Hathaway's quasi-mentor who dominated his every scene with his sly humour. Also, Emily Blunt in her first major American role as Streep's hungry (in every sense) first assistant did a great job in projecting her neediness and determination. With all these interesting characters, it's a pity in a way that it was Hathaway's about which we were meant to care most.
2 comments:
I liked this one...it was fun to watch. hope you have a good day! TerryAnn
I thought that, for once, Streep was enjoying herself (apart from the bummer
with Willis and Hawn) and this did give some depth to her performance where
she has, in other films, tended to be a flat female personification of Laurence
Olivier - and that is not meant as a compliment to either of them!
I am puzzled at Anne Hathaway's rise to stardom - the only thing of her I have
liked is 'Ella Enchanted' and that opnly for the singing to entertain the giants.
Emily Blunt, on the other hand, carried off what could have been almost a nothing
role with panache and intelligence.
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