The Devil Wears Prada

Saw The Devil Wears Prada this week. The hall was packed, and their was a palpable excitement with a real mix of people coming to see it from anorexic thin N.Y. women, to older couples and even large groups of middle aged women. A friend said it was already becoming a gay cult classic movie, with it's emphasis on fashion and bitchiness.

The movie is based on the book by Lauren Weisberger.

The story centers on a small-town girl Andrea Sachs (Anne Hathaway), who gets a job working in New York City for Runway fashion magazine, where she has to cope with a high-powered, dictatorial editor, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep). Her experiences while working with the control freak Meryl Streep ranged from bizarre requests, getting a copy of an unpublished Harry Potter book for her twins to getting her a hot breakfast before she got to work.

The language was witty but ultra bitchy. Look below for a sampling.

Miranda Priestly: The details of your incompetence do not interest me.

Andy Sachs: You look so skinny!
Emily: Really? Thanks, I'm on this new diet where I don't eat... and then when I feel like I'm about to faint, I have a cheese cube.

James Holt: [Andy approaches at the party to get the top secret dress] You're the new Emily.

Miranda Priestly: [to Andy] Emily... Emily... Emily...
Nigel: [to Andy] She's calling you.

Emily: I'm one stomach flu away from reaching my goal weight

The movie had great scenes of Manhattan, lots of expensive designer clothing, fashionable haircuts, sexy and ultra trendy women. But they were all lacking in soul, humanity and any happiness. They were bitter, resentful, angry and therefore obsessed with their work. They had no lives other than the power they got from abusing people at work. It was a scary movie to think that people fall into traps of becoming a Miranda Priestly, and then think they have no options to get out. They made the choices and continued making the choices, they could make different choices and have different lives.

It is not a movie that one can escape in, and not think of the realities of living in America. The reality the movie depicts is the scary part of what women and men can became when their lives are not whole, or have dimensions other than their careers.