Glossy, excessive voltage and so true to life – and the Devil has all the most effective strains: ALEXANDRA SHULMAN opinions the Devil Wears Prada 2

The Devil Wears Prada 2 (12A)

Rating: Four out of five stars  

The long anticipated Devil Wears Prada 2 has arrived in all its accessory-laden glory. 

Was it worth the 20-year wait? Well, that all depends on what you were waiting for.

From the same opening sequences – iconic Manhattan skylines, crowded mid-town sidewalks, the bathroom mirror morning routine – we are on familiar territory. 

That story of Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), the well-meaning intern at Runway magazine, ruled with platinum-clad steeliness by Meryl Streep‘s Miranda Priestly, which became a massive international hit.

It turned Lauren Weisberger’s amusing book (yes, of course I read it!), unashamedly based on her time as one of Anna Wintour‘s assistants, into a global phenomenon.

It could even be argued that it did the same for Anna. The then editor-in-chief of American Vogue was already known to be one of the most influential women in fashion and had a reputation for chilly determination behind her ever-present Chanel sunglasses, but the movie turned her into a cult figure of worldwide fame.

Of course, in the intervening years, the magazine landscape has evolved into something unrecognisable – the all-important print ‘book’ has become a single cog in a digital machine run across websites and social media. And this is what Miranda Priestly is reluctantly having to deal with now.

When I first saw the film all those years ago, I didn’t love it. But I did recognise that much of it was close to the truth.

I had been editing British Vogue for 14 years at that point and obviously knew Anna.

On one hand we were colleagues and met frequently at shows and dinners, but we were also editing magazines that were in competition with each other – over photographers, celebrities and models. It was always her Vogue first.

When I inherited the editor’s seat, the best photographers on our books were banned if they were also working for Harper’s Bazaar, Anna’s main competition in the US.

Anna’s brusqueness when she heard things she didn’t want to hear might rival Miranda Priestly’s, but she has always had a better sense of humour and wit than her fictional counterpart.

The film also captured the relentless importance of appearance. ‘Is it impossible to find a slender female paratrooper?’ Priestly bemoans. It was a line I found mortifyingly recognisable.

Borrowing clothes to shoot on size 12 or 14 women was difficult, with some PRs saying they didn’t feel such a person was ‘on brand’.

In the new iteration, the primary role of Priestly’s humourless new assistant Amari (played by Bridgerton’s Simone Ashley) is to prevent her boss making politically incorrect remarks.

To save the magazine, Priestly also has to unwillingly cave in to today’s mea culpa culture, even apologising for ‘getting it wrong’.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is endlessly self-referential, harking back to some of the best jokes in the original, while also uncannily predicting situations the new order throws up.

When the proprietor of the publishing company dies and his athleisure wearing son inherits, all old bets are off, including Priestly’s long-desired promotion to global head of content (more or less what Anna is now). 

Lunch is no longer held in New York’s wildly expensive Four Seasons but instead in the company cafeteria Priestly didn’t even know existed. 

Management consultants are brought in to look at overall strategy – aka cost-cutting – which is not entirely dissimilar to what has happened recently at Vogue’s publishers Condé Nast, where well-known titles such as Glamour have had a raft of redundancies and individual magazine editors are now impotent figures.

At Runway magazine, Priestly no longer arrives flinging her fur coats on her assistants’ desks but nearly collapses in an effort to hang her own. Worse, she has to suffer the indignity of flying to Milan – in economy!

Even so, she is still mistress of the damningly dismissive one-liners: ‘Do you have a condition that causes you to trudge?’ she asks of the beleaguered Andy, now back at the magazine, this time as features editor (though she is only ever seen writing rather than running a department).

Stanley Tucci’s Nigel, the creative director whose job appears to be a one-man fixer, reprises his role as the loyal wingman, albeit one who seems to be looking at a fashion shoot on transparency rather than digitally – something that stopped around 1994.

In a plotline that uncannily reflects Anna’s new friendship with billionaire Amazon owner Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos – the couple she has persuaded to bankroll this year’s Met Gala next Monday – the fictional Sasha Barnes and her philistine tech husband Benji are major players in this new stay.

Benji is a wonderful construct, lolling in his majestic Lake Como villa. ‘I’m not doing water these days. I’m trying tlovedo operate on a water deficit,’ he says, channelling the tech bro obsession with immortality.

But if the Devil has all the best lines then this time around the Devil has to be Emily Blunt’s character Emily Charlton, the poisonous first assistant of the original film, now reincarnated as a loathsome PR at Dior. She is simply brilliant.

‘Remember when magazines were a… thing,’ she crows, as the Runway team humiliatingly have to agree to her demands for a massive story on the new Dior flagship store with ‘brand credits on every caption’, in order to keep Dior’s advertising. It’s a scene fabulously recognisable to me.

Emily’s campaign against Miranda for firing her from Runway is the engine of the whole film.

In a plot twist that begs the chicken-or-egg question, Runway’s prospective new editor suggests they appear on their own launch cover, similar to Anna’s recent appearance with Meryl Streep on the May cover of US Vogue.

In another cheekily knowing observation, when Andy has scruples about accepting the $350,000 (£260,000) advance she is being offered to write a tell-all book about her boss, Miranda tells her to go ahead.

‘Keep all the juicy bits in. If you write this book, it could buy me a few more years at the top.’ Nothing less than the truth.

Viewers who want to bathe in the familiar pleasure of the original are going to be happy with this amusing sequel. The crazily over-the-top clothes and of course the insane obsession with carbs are still there.

Guest appearances by Marc Jacobs, Donatella Versace and Lady Gaga demonstrate the franchise’s ongoing pulling-power in the fashion world.

Anyone who has a more forensic approach to film might question Andy’s clumsily added-on love interest and Miranda’s equally unlikely soppy husband, played by Kenneth Branagh.

They could definitely quibble about the ludicrous way Andy is brought back into the magazine and grumble about the ponderous start. 

But they couldn’t deny that it’s high-voltage, sparkling fun. And some fun is surely what we all need right now.