When I wrote my review for The Devil Wears Prada (2006), I remarked on how I try to avoid titles that have the word “satan” in them.  My reasoning is that they are typically horror films, and they are not my favorite cinematic fare.  Of course, this one is a romantic comedy of sorts about, Andrea “Andy” Sachs (Anne Hathaway), an ambitious young journalist who nearly loses herself in the world of fashion.  A better place to lose oneself is in their relationship with God, but I digress.  Either way, I have told you nearly the sum total of what I remember from this predecessor to The Devil Wears Prada 2.  Yet, Hollywood, in its unending parade of being unable to come up with anything original, has decided to come out with a sequel twenty years later.  Not that the decades between them will matter for my recollection as there will be little comparing.  Maybe this will be a good thing?

Alternatively, a bad thing is happening at the beginning of The Devil Wears Prada 2.  Long time director of the fictional fashion magazine Runway, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), is going to have her reputation tarnished when news leaks concerning a sweat shop she inadvertently sponsored.  The timing is bad, too, as she is about to be promoted by Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman), the chairman of the parent company that owns Runway.  She is unsure as to how to proceed, as is one of her longest running editors, Nigel Kipling (Stanley Tucci).  At the same time that they are dealing with a crisis, Miranda’s former assistant, Andy, is set to have her own problems.  Since leaving Runway, she has become an award-winning journalist.  As she is receiving another prize, her and her colleagues get a text informing them that their newspaper has been sold and consolidated, and that they are all fired.  Like her previous co-workers, she does not know what to do next.  This is when she gets a text from Irv offering her the position of features editor for her old employer.  After wrestling with the decision to take it for a few days, she finally accepts and heads to the office.  While Nigel is not surprised to see her, Miranda does not recognize her and is uninformed about Andy being hired.  Andy’s presence is barely tolerated and she is given a cramped office in which to work.  She immediately gets down to writing, creating a piece that does much to repair Miranda’s image.  Andy is hoping for some recognition, but it is pointed out to Miranda that the piece did not get the hoped for attention.  The lack of clicks for this story is the beginning of a string of many such underperforming stories that are well thought out, but passed over by the public.  At the same time, part of the fallout of Miranda’s flub is the potential loss of advertisers.  To repair the situation, she takes a meeting with a senior executive at Dior and another former assistant to Miranda, Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt).  This also means a reunion with Andy, and despite the usual frigidness between them, she gets some advice from Emily on how to improve readership.  The big idea comes when Andy tells Miranda that the magazine is going to land an interview with Sasha Barnes (Lucy Liu), a famed but reclusive art collector, philanthropist, and fashion icon.  The problem is that Andy has no contact whatsoever with Sasha.  The planned meet-up is a lie, designed to entice Miranda, who has longed for such an opportunity.  Luckily, Andy has a friend in the art world who is able to begin the string of phone calls that make it a reality.  The exposé is a triumph for Miranda and the magazine, and it gives Andy extra confidence going forward.  With it, Andy buys a new apartment, which leads her to encountering Peter (Patrick Brammal), the contractor who had renovated the homes in the building.  She is even getting invites to parties at Miranda’s home in the Hamptons.  Things are going great until at Irv’s birthday party, the president of the company keels over dead before he can announce Miranda’s promotion.  Irv’s son, Jay Ravitz (B. J. Novak), brings in a group of consultants who suggest a number of changes.  They all involve cutting budgets and staff, something that Andy has already experienced.  It all comes as Runway is preparing for a major show in Milan, Italy.  So stressed is Andy by the situation that it strains her budding relationship with Peter.  Once in Italy, she decides to take steps to prevent the collapse.  Approaching Emily, who is dating Sasha’s ex-husband, the rich idiot Benji Barnes (Justin Theroux), Andy and the Dior executive come up with a plan to have Benji purchase Runway.  Once everything is in place, they come to Miranda with the news, but the magazine’s director sees through Emily’s ulterior motives.  Instead of saving Runway as Andy hopes, Emily desires to replace Miranda.  Further, Benji wants to make everything artificial intelligence (AI) generated.  Andy is devastated and tries to apologize profusely, but Miranda largely ignores the pleas.  Instead, the veteran fashionista has a plan.  While she attends the shows, Andy works the phones and gets Sasha to agree to purchase all of Jay’s holdings.  This means not solely Runway, but the entire media company.  Jay delivers the news to Benji and Emily as they are meeting to finalize their deal.  In return, Sasha is giving Miranda free rein over content.  The move allows Miranda to get the promotion she had wanted, for Andy to guide the stories the magazine puts out, and Nigel to take a larger role in everything else.

The final scene in The Devil Wears Prada 2 is of these three in their adjoining office.  The shot is meant to evoke the thought that these three will be navigating Runway’s future.  Despite my fuzzy memory of the predecessor, it seems a far cry from the original, but I think I like the sequel better.  Part of my reasoning involves the title.  The “devil” is supposed to be Miranda, and unlike the first, we see that she is much less cruel than such a label suggests.  People enjoyed the last movie because villains are interesting, which is essentially a line from this iteration.  This Catholic objects, and it is not accurate to call Miranda a villain.  The devil would not be so soft hearted as her.  Granted, she mostly maintains her cold persona throughout, including when her and Andy are driving away from Sasha’s having saved Runway.  It should be a time for celebrating an obvious blessing and miracle, but Miranda muses that Andy might one day replace the boss.  It is the kind of attitude that often makes Catholicism at odds with the corporate world, but I digress.  More privately, I have trouble imagining a devilish person wishing people to be honest about her.  This is in connection to a book that Andy has been contracted to write about Miranda, one that the younger woman feels increasingly conflicted about and at one point is going to refuse to write.  Andy does not think that Miranda knows about it, but the older woman lets on her knowledge of the situation, telling the protégé to be completely honest.  Doing so is a mark of vulnerability, as is her relationship with her husband, Stuart (Kenneth Branagh), and more Christ-like than people might think.

There is more to think about when it comes to The Devil Wears Prada 2 from a Catholic perspective.  Such things are rarely coincidental, but there is Miranda’s last name to consider: Priestly.  I am not sure as to the reasoning behind this choice, but I suspect it is meant to be ironic given the title.  On the other hand, there are some priestly qualities about Miranda.  It also helps that at one point, Emily refers to Runway as a “religion.”  Miranda’s lack of warmth may not evoke spiritual father, but our clergy is taught to keep a certain professional distance while also being present to their flocks.  It is a difficult balancing act, but one that she accomplishes.  While this might seem like it is grasping, there are other more concrete Catholic connections.  While they are in Milan, they have a dinner for people in the fashion industry in the same room in which Leonardo da Vinci painted his famous fresco of The Last Supper.  By the way, this iconic piece of art, known by billions around the world, remains in a working monastery now run by Dominican friars.  In case you see this movie and wonder why, all of the sudden, there are these strange looking men in long, white and black robes, know that they are Catholic monks.  They have no role to play other than showing Andy and Miranda into the room where the dinner is to happen, but the piece of art is meant to symbolize a moment where Andy is being seen as a Judas to Miranda.  Thankfully, Andy redeems herself, which is more than we can say about Jesus’ betrayer.  In the end, though, the film is about redemption, and that is as Christian of a theme as it gets.

It would be silly to call The Devil Wears Prada 2 a Christian movie no matter its themes.  Nonetheless, God loves beauty, and no matter what you think of Miranda, so does she.  You can also disagree with her ways, but her goal is to preserve beauty.  And whatever is beautiful has God as its originator.  For these reasons, I recommend the film.