“The Devil Wears Prada 2” Fails to Impress

The Devil Wears Prada 2 (David Frankel, 2026) 1 out of 5 stars

Director David Frankel’s The Devil Wears Prada—based on author Lauren Weisberger’s best-selling eponymous 2003 novel—came out in 2006 and earned Meryl Streep one of her many Oscar nominations for Best Actress. It also helped the careers of its two other stars, Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt, allowing the former to transition from onscreen youth to adult and the latter to gain enough notice to shortly thereafter move into celebrity status. The film had a good time poking fun at the fashion industry and, in particular, longtime Vogue magazine editor Anna Wintour, on whom Streep’s character of Miranda Priestly was based.

Now, 20 years later, comes The Devil Wears Prada 2, from the same screenwriter (Aline Brosh McKenna) and director. All the principals return, including Stanley Tucci as Priestley’s second-in-command, Nigel. Many others join the cast, among them Kenneth Branagh (Death on the Nile), Lucy Liu (Red One), and Justin Theroux (Violet). Unfortunately, all the problems of the first film come back, as well, and this time with much less wit.

My biggest issue with The Devil Wears Prada—and with all narratives like it—is how it became, by its end, a kind of apologia for the behavior of the tyrant at its center. Yes, Priestley, the editor of Runway (a stand-in for Vogue), was a nasty piece of work, but she was also a genius at her job. And the actions of such folks are always justified to a degree by the results they get. This may not have been the primary thrust of the plot, but that theme was definitely present. At least there were jokes, though.

In The Devil Wears Prada 2, the humor is less funny and the defense of the imperious behavior more egregious. Abuse, whether meted out by a man or a woman, should never be tolerated. Here, all is forgiven in the name of art (well, fashion, which in this movie is the same thing).

Though Andy Sachs (Hathaway) only stayed at Runway briefly two decades ago, and is now an award-winning journalist, as the film begins she discovers—while receiving yet another accolade—that she and the entire staff of her publication are fired (by text), due to their corporate parent’s new priorities. Suddenly without a job, she jumps at the offer from Runway’s CEO, Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman), to take over as primary content writer for the site (there’s no longer a print edition). What follows is a rehash of the same dynamic between Miranda and Andy, with Nigel in the middle, only now everyone is older. Blunt’s character, Emily Charlton, has long since moved on to Dior, but is still very much a part of the mix.

As befits this kind of glitzy affair, there are elegant locations and plenty of cameos from famous people; Lady Gaga shows up among them (at least she gets to sing). All in all, the writing feels tired and very much a retread of Part 1, including Andy’s regression to the same insecure person she apparently is whenever Miranda is around (despite her years of professional success). <sigh> The devil is very much in the details, and they do not impress.

Christopher Llewellyn Reed

Chris Reed is the editor of Film Festival Today. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, Chris is, in addition, lead film critic at Hammer to Nail and the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice.