Twenty years is a long time to wait. David Frankel has brought Runway back into our lives — and he has not wasted a moment of it.
Before you catwalk to any conclusions, though: this is not a review of The Devil Wears Prada 2. A review this late would be binned — by Miranda Priestly's second assistant, naturally.
The first film traces Andy Sachs's (Anne Hathaway) journey from wide-eyed outsider to polished insider at a Vogue-like fashion bible. Sachs dreams of becoming a journalist, but actual journalism takes a back seat the moment her Chanel-centred transformation kicks in — that iconic tweed cap etched itself into cultural memory the instant it appeared on screen. In hindsight, ultimately, Chanel was the film's true Holy Grail.
Cut to twenty years later. The opening sequence wastes no time establishing the raw power of a digital news break — and precisely how it can reduce the most sterling of reputations to memes within minutes.
The film does not shy away from the uglier side of workplace politics either, mapping a pivot from fashion's high-pressure, sink-or-swim world straight into the equally brutal trenches of modern journalism. The original was built on its fast-paced, outfit-centric fashion montages — each one marking a new style milestone for Andy, each one deepening her standing in Priestly's eyes.
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In Prada 2, on the other hand, Andy's swift come-back into Runway is characterised by a very hard-hitting reality of a journalist's universe — job losses, even when or, rather, especially when you are terrific.
Andy's viral speech after the New york Vanguard fires her minutes before she is to receive an award, delves into how real journalism is dying at the hands of consolidation, budget cuts, digital transformations with their clickable 'SEO-friendly' content, and a wave of artificial intelligence into the industry; and honestly? should have come with trigger warning if nothing else.
Even as the Anne Hathaway character turns over a new leaf as the Features Editor in Runway, after having given up all of her Chanel, woes of a digital-first world do not recede.
"First I have to figure out what needs to be out there, now I have to figure out what people will click on," cries Andy, as her socially aware feature pieces, merging fashion and issues like climate change fail to get any traction.
The glossy feel of a magazine's pages, even one as prestigious as the Runway, were now "downloadable", "streamable", and somewhere "in the ether" as the publication's most loyal employee Nigel puts it.
It is not long before Emily Charlton's new role as the retail head of Dior brings to the forefront the overpowering role of advertisements in the underfunded journalistic sphere. "No us, No you," she says, and a softened, pacified, dozed-off Miranda agrees.
The holy grail is no longer the Chanels, Marcs, Michael Kors, and the Vievienne Westwoods but rather an interview with one of the richest (and rather inspiring) women in the world — Sasha Barnes (played by Lucy Liu); which, our girl Andy, manages to bag.
In the film, Barnes has stayed away from the press for three years following her divorce from Benji Barnes, a tech bro billionaire, who was probably bullied in highschool; and yet chooses to give an exclusive juicy breaking to Runway at the behest of Andy's gravitas-filled feature articles.
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Just when things start to look up, Miranda's much anticipated promotion as the head of global content is met with the unanticipated death of Runway-parent Elias Clarke's CEO, Irv Ravitz, moments before he made the promotion official.
Clouds of uncertainty cluster over the future of Runway, once it has been inherited by Irv's son, Jay Ravitz — A fist bumping, fashion deaf, EBITDA obsessed nepo baby who wants to offload Elias Clarke the first hefty offer he receives.
Jay's takeover is window into the corporate nightmare of key management changes, tremors of which can cause cracks in a publication's foundation.
Ravitz Junior's idea of progress is budget cuts through every department of Runway, and laying off employees that have gotten "too expensive" after giving more than five years of their efforts to the firm.
Andy's hysterical reaction to the changes, though, is what stands out as the most authentic commentary on the state of the media universe.
Already distraught by losing one job to perils of the digital world and downscaling, Sachs' heart breaks when she realises that Priestly had no plans of retaining the aura of the publication and was more than willing to comply.
Andy's new boyfriend Peter, whose existence makes no difference to the plot of the film, makes her spiral worse by pointing out that what is happening is the new normal and it is happening everywhere.
"We can't just keep sucking the soul out of everything and then gutting it and repackaging it," retorts Andy driving home the point that the film is not a 'whisper' but a cry for help... Journalism's cry for help.
Power dynamics between "one of the Emilys" and Priestly have more than just evolved in this film, they have metamorphosed into a struggle. After Andy's poorly thought out rendezvous opens a short-lived door for Emily to take Miranda's place as the Editor-in-chief, Priestly receives a much needed wake up call to get her ducks in a row.
"I think a day is coming very soon where Runway doesn't need models, locations or even designers," Benji Barnes tells Miranda hinting at an AI-led makeover of the publication, into a fast fashion version of the Silicon Valley.
The film ends on a hopeful note with Sasha Barnes acquiring the whole firm from under her ex husband's nose and promising journalistic autonomy to the Andy and Miranda dream team.
Even as Runway's holy grail becomes a Hail Mary for journalistic freedom on the silver screen; how many Jays, Benjis, and Emilys can we fend off in the real world? And who all will manage to find space in the last floating log of wood beside a sinking titanic?
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