The Devil Wears Prada 2
2026
Here we are, twenty years after The Devil Wears Prada movie earned Meryl Streep her 14th Oscar nomination, solidified Anne Hathaway as an adult movie star, made us all fall deeply in love with Stanley Tucci, and announced the arrival of a force of nature known as Emily Blunt. Well, they’re all back—and basically sharing co-star status—in the new film, The Devil Wears Prada 2.
Hathaway’s Andi Sachs finds herself back at the Vogue-stand-in magazine, Runway, ruled over by the beastly Miranda Priestly (Streep). Tucci is still the heart of that operation as a visionary stylist, and Blunt’s Emily (must have made things easier on set) is now in a semi-rival position as a Dior bigwig. (Got that?)
While the original film made the convincing argument that runway fashion is relevant and echoed in even the most thrifty of trends (Who can forget that simple but perfect monologue by Streep on the shade of blue Andi is wearing?), the sequel makes a statement that journalism—while it needs to please readers to survive—should uphold standards of integrity that seem to have fallen by the wayside, where they’ve been picked up by bullies in order to beat other bullies. On the fashion front, the new film fights with the parallel tension between content and ads, fashion experts and fashion vendors.
It’s light as a pastry and probably as good as the original…but I don’t pledge my soul on that. There are, of course, a good number of subtle callbacks to the first film, but they are discrete and delivered lightly. This makes the first film nonessential viewing, but everyone has seen it, anyway. A new generation of characters, played by people like Simone Ashley and Broadway’s Helen J. Shen, populate the magazine…which is trying to remain an industry leader in a digital iteration. They’re fine, but only Ashley makes a real mark, playing Miranda’s current long-suffering assistant.
New actors join in smaller roles, namely B. J. Novak, Lucy Liu, and Justin Theroux, who are the wealthy dummies that must be courted to raise money to keep Runway afloat. They are meant to be annoying, mostly, but I could have done with a little more shading in their characters.
Of course, the movie aims to put new catchphrases into the multiverse…and sometimes it gets a good one. Others fail to launch. And I fail to remember any of them 24 hours later. Likewise, there are (apparently) cameos in the dozens by (fashion) people I don’t know and certainly wouldn’t recognize. (I did catch Donatella Versace, because who else looks like Max Schreck?) The fashion, likewise, is baffling and impossible to spot. Apparently, this middle-aged guy has fully lost grip on the fashion industry and can’t tell chic from meek.
As for the film’s overall quality, it does suffer a little from the attempts to give Streep, Hathaway, Blunt, and Tucci all full story arcs. But the story doesn’t seem to matter all that much. This is a movie meant for fun, comedy, nostalgia, and fashion envy. For me, it hit about two of those. But I will still happily spend an evening with these four actors, all of whom are especial favorites of mine.