Devil Wears Prada

[ricevermicelli]

So the movie fixes a bunch of the stuff I hated about the book, namely, that the main character is all entitled and snotty about her job. The main character (Andy) is an editor's personal assistant. It is, in fact, the job of a personal assistant to do whatever the boss needs - screen calls, make appointments, pick up the dry cleaning. The job sucks, and PAs deserve lots of respect, but Andy's habit of snotting about how much it sucks to have to shop for her boss (using her boss's money) really grated my nerves in the book. In the movie, someone smacks Our Heroine upside the head about her whining early on and she pulls her socks up and starts to do a good job. Unfortunately, this otherwise welcome development nearly eliminates the plot.

In place of the pre-existing plot, the screenwriter inserts some contrived conflict regarding the Andy's friends and her work commitments. These things don't work particularly well, and the scene where one friend complains about the way Andy will ditch anything to take her boss's calls while moving her stuff into a new designer handbag that Andy was comped at the office works particularly badly.

In the end, Andy's boss tells Andy that, in becoming a better assistant than her co-worker, Andy has backstabbed that other girl. And Andy, apparantly, believes her. The moral here is violently ambiguous. graceo says that the moral is actually that shoes are bad, and as silly as that sounds, it makes more sense.

Comments

[sleepyworm.livejournal.com]

actually, "shoes are bad" is a moral I live by!

[lightcastle.livejournal.com]

Sadly, as I am morally ambivalent, I can only agree that "some shoes are bad".

[sleepyworm.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'd rather carpet the world than ever wear shoes again. hate hate hate them!

[lightcastle.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.

[drwex]

*blink* small world. What are YOU doing HERE? he wonders.

[lightcastle.livejournal.com]

Nothing of consequence. Commenting on shoes. :)

[xatharine.livejournal.com]

Aha. I hadn't read the book and the fact that the conflict between he boyfriend and her career is constructed for the movie makes me feel much better about the book, while your description of the whining allows me to avoid reading the book without any guilt. Perfection.