Gentlemen, please leave the room. This review is for the ladies only, and I have tea to spill. She’s back! Better than before. Meryl Streep is the film!
The Devil Wears Prada 2
The long-awaited sequel, The Devil Wears Prada 2, written by Aline Brosh McKenna and directed by David Frankel, picks up twenty years later from when Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) left Runway and Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) to work as a serious journalist. But things have changed in the real world, and in the world of Prada. AI has destroyed respectable and accurate journalism, and Andy and her fellow reporters have all been laid off. Miranda and Runway are dealing with bad publicity, as Runway’s parent company attempts to crush the news that a sweatshop was involved in one of the designs.
All the old favorites are there: Emily (Emily Blunt) now works for Dior, the ever faithful Nigel Kipling (Stanley Tucci) is still the hand to the queen, but we also have new faces and new plots to feast on with Simone Ashley as the newest Emily, and Lucy Liu as Sasha Barnes, a wealthy reclusive divorced wife of Silicon Valley billionaire Benji Barnes (Justin Theroux). We also have a new husband for Miranda, Kenneth Branagh, and the handsome Patrick Brammall as Andy’s new love interest.
The plot (if you can call this fashion gala on steroids, a plot) thickens after Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman) dies before promoting Miranda, thus leaving business in the hands of Jay Ravitz (B. J. Novak), who quickly begins disassembling Runway. It’s going to take a miracle to save the fashion world, and we do get one with the help of Lady Gaga singing an original song for the film. Honestly, I will watch anything that has Meryl Streep and Lady Gaga starring together. Two queens with killer attitudes.
Conclusion
Okay, we can invite the gentleman back into the conversation. We are done talking about the frills; now we are focusing on what the film revealed about the dangers of AI and the unbridled greed of malevolent capitalists. The film never really says how Andy buried the sweatshop news, but we know that those outfits that we buy from retail stores…are not being made here in the good ole USA. Factories are now located in developing nations with weak labour laws.
The Gala, which in the film takes place in Milan, mirrored a more recent 2026 Met Gala where billionaires Jeff Bezos and his wife sponsored an event that felt more like the “Hunger Games” in the real-life global instability brought on by Trump’s Epic Fury disaster. When people are losing jobs because of Artificial Intelligence…fashion means nothing, and Walmart is the new Prada.
AI has taken over the art world and the world of journalism. People don’t read newspapers, but what they read on Google might be AI-generated conspiracy theories. And while those beautiful models surrounded Lady Gaga as she belted out her song, I was thinking about other models…younger models…. babies, really…who were sucked into the horror show known as the Epstein Files.
The Devil Wore Prada 2 is a fun film. I loved it as much as the first. I loved the actors, the fashions, and the joy of the other people in that dark theatre who were cheering for Miranda and Andy….but…I keep wondering what will happen when AI replaces the writers, directors, and actors. What kind of entertainment will then hold us hostage? And, in a world of unbridled consumerism, is The Devil Wears Prada 2 a warning that we only have worth if we own this year’s Gucci Giglio Bag? Take this spilling of the tea however you want it, but The Devil Wears Prada 2 is a fun way for us to partake of the fashion world, if only for a few hours.
