I've seen this movie so many times and thought I knew what my peers thought about it, but at the time it came out we didn't quite have the beehive of commentary that we do now. It wasn't until recently that I was even aware of the the great consensus among its fans that Nate is a whiny, childish brat who tries to convince himself that he's not criticizing her for the nature of her job -- "I make port wine reductions all day. I'm not exactly in the Peace Corps" -- and yet in the very next sentence he questions her "integrity" because of the devotion she has to her job. Whoever had the thankless job of developing Nate's personality/storyline I guess never had to endure an entry level job, which everyone knows is just a stepping stone, and sometimes not even that.
So I appreciate your calling out his hypocrisy and weak arguments.
I think the .... let's call it resentment which some people (me, I am some people) feel towards high fashion is because it seems to demand a place in our attention which other art generally doesn't. Why do I see endless footage of the Met Gala from media outlets which DGAF about opera, for example? Is Vogue really more important than seeing Klimt paintings in Vienna's Belvedere Musum?
I think I could more easily see the merits of Miranda Priestly if she wasn't primarily in the business of demanding illogical, utterly crazy things of her assistants, and if these requests didn't primarily accrue to her own personal comfort. ("Get me a flight out of Miami during a hurricane when all flights are grounded so that I don't have to miss my daughters' piano recital," for instance.) Her requests to Andy have very little to do with the actual creation of the art of the magazine and almost everything to do with making sure that she not only has creature comforts, but so that she can pretend to her family that her job isn't the most important thing in her life. (Getting her twins the copies of Harry Potter before it is released, for example.)
I also feel constrained to note that Vito and Michael Corleone both are thoroughly decent to the goombahs that they ask to commit crimes for them.
Great piece! I tend to agree with many of the takes here, and I quite like this movie! I am curious to hear your thoughts on The Devil Wears Prada 2. I watched it recently in theaters and found it to be far far worse than the first. For starters, the series of events that leads Andy back to Runway is unrealistic. Then also, the relationship between Andy and Miranda is less interesting. Andy has grown; she knows what she likes and what she is good at, but yet the producers still want us to think that she seeks Miranda's approval. There are scenes that suggest as much, but they are not convincing in the slightest. Andy is confident; she has already left once and she very well could leave again. I was not convinced that she was at all scared of (once-sacred) Priestly. The one redeeming quality of the film was those wonderful sweeping shots of New York City, which I admit were beautiful.
I've seen this movie so many times and thought I knew what my peers thought about it, but at the time it came out we didn't quite have the beehive of commentary that we do now. It wasn't until recently that I was even aware of the the great consensus among its fans that Nate is a whiny, childish brat who tries to convince himself that he's not criticizing her for the nature of her job -- "I make port wine reductions all day. I'm not exactly in the Peace Corps" -- and yet in the very next sentence he questions her "integrity" because of the devotion she has to her job. Whoever had the thankless job of developing Nate's personality/storyline I guess never had to endure an entry level job, which everyone knows is just a stepping stone, and sometimes not even that.
So I appreciate your calling out his hypocrisy and weak arguments.
I think the .... let's call it resentment which some people (me, I am some people) feel towards high fashion is because it seems to demand a place in our attention which other art generally doesn't. Why do I see endless footage of the Met Gala from media outlets which DGAF about opera, for example? Is Vogue really more important than seeing Klimt paintings in Vienna's Belvedere Musum?
I think I could more easily see the merits of Miranda Priestly if she wasn't primarily in the business of demanding illogical, utterly crazy things of her assistants, and if these requests didn't primarily accrue to her own personal comfort. ("Get me a flight out of Miami during a hurricane when all flights are grounded so that I don't have to miss my daughters' piano recital," for instance.) Her requests to Andy have very little to do with the actual creation of the art of the magazine and almost everything to do with making sure that she not only has creature comforts, but so that she can pretend to her family that her job isn't the most important thing in her life. (Getting her twins the copies of Harry Potter before it is released, for example.)
I also feel constrained to note that Vito and Michael Corleone both are thoroughly decent to the goombahs that they ask to commit crimes for them.
Great piece! I tend to agree with many of the takes here, and I quite like this movie! I am curious to hear your thoughts on The Devil Wears Prada 2. I watched it recently in theaters and found it to be far far worse than the first. For starters, the series of events that leads Andy back to Runway is unrealistic. Then also, the relationship between Andy and Miranda is less interesting. Andy has grown; she knows what she likes and what she is good at, but yet the producers still want us to think that she seeks Miranda's approval. There are scenes that suggest as much, but they are not convincing in the slightest. Andy is confident; she has already left once and she very well could leave again. I was not convinced that she was at all scared of (once-sacred) Priestly. The one redeeming quality of the film was those wonderful sweeping shots of New York City, which I admit were beautiful.