Two decades after The Devil Wears Prada turned the fashion magazine workplace into a pop culture phenomenon with its icy one-liners and cutting-edge couture, the sequel hits theatres carrying a heavy bag of expectation. Fans want the same cocktail that made the 2006 original irresistible: razor-sharp comebacks, fetishistic fashion, and above all, Meryl Streep’s imperious Miranda Priestly.
In those departments, The Devil Wears Prada 2 largely delivers.
Directed again by David Frankel and written by returning screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, the sequel knows exactly what its audience has come for. It slips comfortably into familiar rhythms, reuniting Miranda, Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) and Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt) while cleverly recalibrating their relationships for a changed professional landscape.
This time, however, the world around them has shifted. Print media is collapsing, fashion magazines are scrambling for relevance, and digital disruption hangs over every glossy world like a dark cloud.
The film’s sharpest idea is its commentary on the death spiral of journalism. It opens with Andy, now firmly established as a "serious journalist" at The Vanguard, accepting a prestigious award just as news breaks that the publication is folding. Her impassioned acceptance speech, condemning corporate greed and media consolidation, becomes an overnight viral sensation after she rails against executives pocketing multimillion-dollar paychecks while newsrooms are gutted.
It is a pointed, timely setup, one that briefly suggests The Devil Wears Prada 2 might have something more biting on its mind than simply revisiting old glories. That promise is further sharpened when Andy is unexpectedly recruited back into the orbit of Runway magazine, tasked with helping repair the publication’s credibility after it is embroiled in scandal for endorsing a sweatshop-linked fast-fashion brand.
This re-entry into Miranda’s world is where the sequel regains its stride.
Streep returns to Miranda with astonishing ease, as if she never took off the Prada. The performance remains immaculate — poised, precise and laced with enough acid to strip paint. Miranda has evolved just enough to feel current: she no longer flings coats onto assistants’ desks thanks to HR complaints, and her first assistant Amari (a scene-stealing Simone Ashley) tactfully reins in her more culturally tone-deaf impulses. But the essential Miranda remains gloriously intact, capable of reducing underlings to dust with a single raised eyebrow.
If Streep is the film’s steel frame, Stanley Tucci’s Nigel Kipling remains its warmest flourish. Once again, Tucci proves indispensable, delivering his cutting observations with deliciously dry wit while bringing an undercurrent of affection that prevents the film from tipping into caricature. His scenes with Hathaway — particularly as he once more rescues Andy from sartorial inadequacy — carry an easy charm.
Emily Blunt, meanwhile, is in deliciously venomous form as Emily Charlton, now an executive at Dior’s New York office. Her scenes crackle with barely concealed disdain and gleeful opportunism, particularly when she leverages Runway’s desperation into free ad placements and editorial favours.
Hathaway has the trickiest task. Andy is now older, more confident and professionally accomplished, but still retains a fundamental earnestness that occasionally makes her feel outmatched by the far more entertainingly monstrous figures around her. Hathaway’s natural charisma carries her through, even when the script struggles to give Andy a compelling emotional arc.
Not all of McKenna’s attempts at contemporary satire land.
Justin Theroux’s Benji Barnes, a tech-billionaire caricature never quite coheres into a credible threat. His subplot involving a possible acquisition of Runway is too thinly drawn to generate much tension. Similarly undercooked is the film’s half-hearted critique of luxury real estate through Andy’s romance with Australian architect Peter (Patrick Brammall), a thread riddled with logical inconsistencies.
The script repeatedly gestures toward serious social critique — media collapse, exploitative fast fashion, housing inequality — only to retreat into glossy fantasy before any of those ideas become genuinely uncomfortable. This is not a sequel interested in upsetting its audience. It wants to flatter them, dazzle them and reassure them.
And on that front, it succeeds magnificently.
The fashion remains spectacular. Costume designer Molly Rogers takes over from Patricia Field and delivers an intoxicating parade of couture that practically begs to be freeze-framed. Milan provides the expected visual splendour, with the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and the original Prada store serving as appropriately glamorous backdrops.
The celebrity cameos come thick and fast — Naomi Campbell, Marc Jacobs, Tina Brown, Law Roach, Jon Batiste and more drifting through the frame with varying degrees of self-awareness. The standout is an uproariously funny lunch sequence featuring Emily and Donatella Versace. Not to forget the extended cameo by Lady Gaga, and her foottapping song Runway.
There is also genuine comedy gold mined from Runway’s forced austerity measures. Miranda learning she must eat in the staff cafeteria or fly coach produces some of the film’s funniest moments, with Streep’s impeccable physical comedy elevating even the smallest reaction into a masterclass.
If the film falters, it does so in its determination to soften every edge. The original thrived on moral ambiguity and emotional ruthlessness. This sequel ultimately opts for reconciliation, nostalgia and a polished sentimentality that feels slightly too safe.
Still, The Devil Wears Prada 2 is unlikely to disappoint its target audience. It is sleek, featherlight and expertly assembled — less a cutting workplace satire than an expensive editorial spread brought to life. But, in Miranda Priestly’s world, style is enough.