The disposability of ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’

David Frankel’s 2006 original is a nearly unimpeachable “chick-flick” classic—use that term derisively at your own peril—save perhaps for one major thing: its ending. For anyone who agrees, the sequel does actually begin by offering a mea culpa of sorts, though it doesn’t quite pan out in the long run. But first, a little background for those who might have forgotten where things left off. Fans of The Devil Wears Prada have recently taken to framing Andy’s then-boyfriend Nate (Adrian Grenier) as the movie’s true villain, but this may have less to do with his complaints about her career demands, and might be more of a symptom of dramatic framing.

If you’ll recall, the first movie ends with Miranda begrudgingly respecting Andy’s departure from the abusive environment of Runway Magazine, a world our heroine leaves behind in order to chase her dreams of “real” journalism and, potentially, to chase Nate across the country too. It’s a great movie with the wrong climax; a more honest story may have centered the glamor and the cutthroat allure of fashion, to which Andy was gradually drawn, and which might have even stuck to despite its toxicity (à la Damien Chazelle’s jazz drummer odyssey Whiplash). In fact, the novel by Lauren Weisberger not only has Andy being fired, thus keeping the decision out of her hands, but also ends with her trying to wiggle her way back into Miranda’s orbit. Of course, the need for an ostensibly “happy ending” might not have allowed the film to end this way, but at the beginning of The Devil Wears Prada 2, we quickly learn that things may not have been so rosy after the closing credits.

A returning Frankel quickly presents a warm and vibrant Manhattan (even though its drab, washed out trailer might suggest otherwise). Andy, now a somewhat respected local journalist, accepts an award from the New York Press Club for a human interest story the very same evening she and her co-workers are mercilessly fired by their paper’s new vulturous owners. In a single scene, the sequel sets the stage for a drastically different landscape, to which all the returning characters have had to adjust. Andy is out of a job, while Miranda—who she hasn’t seen in 20 years —no longer runs a magazine. Oh, don’t worry, she’s still in charge of Runway, but the publication is now entirely digital, concerned with the metrics of clicks and shares, and more beholden than ever to large advertisers. When the movie begins, Miranda finds herself at the center of a media scandal when one of the boutique companies Runway platformed turns out to have been a fast fashion sweatshop, like those commonly found in China. This leads Runway’s owner Irv Rabitz (Tibor Feldman) and his opportunistic, tech bro son Jay (B. J. Novak) to offer Andy a job as Runway’s new features editor, a resell-your-soul bargain to which she quickly relents, and one of several rapid-fire conveniences that shifts the plot into place. 

This is, in short, how The Devil Wears Prada 2 reestablishes the dynamics of the first film—down to Stanley Tucci’s fashion director Nigel Kipling remaining Andy’s sassy confidant, since he still works in Miranda’s shadow. Andy’s former rival Emily (Emily Blunt) enters the fray in a much more interesting way, while also courting a tech bro of her own—Justin Theroux’s hilariously goofy Benji Barnes—because as mentioned, the film has a lot of contemporary issues on its mind. However, more often than not, it tends to flail in their direction in superficial ways. Granted, nobody going into the sequel would expect it to be (or even want it to be) a tome on modern venture capitalism, but characters constantly hint at the shifting digital landscape in ways that threaten to further complicate the story. Unfortunately, this never really happens.

Instead, we’re treated to brisk montages of Andy’s new life at Runway moving forward, albeit without the personal complications of the first film, à la Nate. While she eventually gets involved with a handsome (if plainly forgettable) suitor, the sequel’s mimicry of the original is missing a central tension pulling its protagonist in different directions. On occasion, the idea of her writing a secret book about Miranda is broached, but even when it’s close to materializing, it’s a project she’s never particularly passionate about, so it never quite injects meaningful drama into the proceedings. One major story pivot does actually change things for a while, but it’s so sudden and tonally macabre that it’s hard to take seriously. 

Bigger than any structural issues, however, is the conceptual problem of Miranda just not being any fun this time around. Streep’s performance as an analog of Vogue’s former editor, Anna Wintour, became iconic for the beating humanity she layered beneath witty, piercing barbs. This time, she’s denied both those major ingredients. Miranda is now in a perfectly happy marriage to Kenneth Branagh’s forgettable so-and-so, resulting in little personal friction for the magazine queen, beyond—like the real Wintour as of 2025—occasionally considering hanging up her boots (little comes of this as well). Meanwhile, the character’s forcibly congenial tone is a product of the movie’s half-hearted commentary on changing times, by way of her new assistant Amari (Simone Ashley) having to remind her not to utter demeaning phrases while at work. 

The latter is also pretty much the extent any of the new characters or actors have to shine. Ashley, despite having Emily and Andy’s old position, is a perfectly adjusted non-character with nothing to do except show up. Similarly, Andy’s own secretary Jin Chao (Helen J. Shen) gets a couple of enthusiastically nerdy scenes, but not much more—her high-strung throwaway role has already been the subject of backlash in some Asian countries—while Lucy Liu is given about a scene and a half as the wealthy subject of one of Andy’s articles. None of these roles are particularly offensive, but they do leave a strange taste when viewed in totality, since a series that once struck gold with its multifaceted portrayals of women in a fast-paced workplace can no longer seem to do the same if those women are non-white. 

Intentional or otherwise, this speaks to the larger problem of the sequel’s flattened human drama. For instance, rare are the moments in which we glimpse Andy’s personal life, or get hints about what’s transpired since 2006 beyond a brief bit of exposition. And while Hathaway is radiant and chipper as ever, this makes her re-entry into the Runway sphere particularly frictionless—not to mention, filled with characters with flimsy motivations.

In the end, The Devil Wears Prada 2 isn’t so much a modern update as it is a reissue that limply gestures at modernity. It hits the same beats as before while trying to capitalize on contemporary trends—such as the arrival of AI, which warrants at best an awkward mention. But the sequel is already so last season, despite its fast fashion grasp at relevancy. Unlike the original, it doesn’t have what it takes to stick around.