This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Break a Leg
Plot Overview
NYC's Runway fashion mag has seen better times à la an earlier “Prada” (2006.) In the intervening twenty years, the public has gone digital losing their respect for the elegant beauty of the printed page. But not all. It's like the sailors of old in an E.C.B Preston short story:
ship-masters mainly of the older school who had served their time in wind-jammers, and were now resigned to traversing the oceans beneath the shadow of black smoke instead of the towering beauty of white sails; men who had succumbed in their youth to the fatal domination of the sea, and were now, in the face of new and sometimes unwelcome conditions, no longer capable of withdrawing from that implacable allegiance. (495)
Runway's editor in chief Miranda Priestly (Meryl
Streep) has committed a gaffe in accepting advertising from a
company that ran a sweat shop. To manage damage control, Runway's
parent company Elias Clarke Publishers CEO Irv Ratitz has offered to hire the
author of the damaging exposé, one Andrea “Andy”
Sachs (Anne Hathaway) to become the Features
Editor—though she had bad blood with Priestly in the past.
Irv (Tibor Feldman) is grooming Priestly for the post: Global Head
of Content of the parent company, while Sachs having been cast
adrift from failed New York Vanguard has received a
generous offer to do an exposé on Priestly. The first order
of business for this new working duo is to secure the goodwill of
their shaky advertiser DIOR under the auspices of its executive
Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt.) She pretends to go along with it, but
in secret her playboy boyfriend tech billionaire Benji
Barnes (Justin Theroux) has designs on buying Runway
and putting Emily in charge. That would be disastrous as she is
rightly told, “you're not a visionary; you're a vendor.”
Come the night of Irv's
birthday party he is slated to announce Miranda's promotion, but he
croaks instead. His son Jay (B.J. Novak) inherits the business who
has no fashion sense or of style for that matter. He meets with
Miranda in the employees' cafeteria of all places. Miranda's eager
new assistant Jin Zhou (Helen J Shen) bugs Jay's confab with his
cronies to learn they plan to gut the company. The girls take
countermeasures at a fashion show in Milan.
Ideology
Success per one biblical formula follows, (Prov. 30:24) “There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise:”
(Prov. 30:25) “The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer.” The first step is to get busy while young, in the summer of life, with an eye to future provision.
We saw in the earlier “Prada” where Andy “was editor in chief of the Daily Northwestern, won a national competition for college journalism.” “Prada 2” opens with her receiving another award (“Andy's story is bracing.”) She's “smart, learns fast, and will work very hard.” Her early developed work ethic stood her in good stead. Miranda herself was taken under Irv's father's wing with him to the office when she was a girl.
(Prov. 30:26) “The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks.” The next step is location, being situated in a place conducive to thriving in one's field. Andy from Ohio settled in New York where the fashion action is. In this picture she goes to Milan for the big fashion show.
(Prov.
30:27) “The locusts have no king, yet go they forth
all of them by bands.” The next step on the road to success
is to cultivate an informal support network. Here her
erstwhile mentor Nigel Kipling (Stanley Tucci) was behind her
opening opportunity (“This whole time, you thought this job
just dropped into your lap.”) It was through calling in
favors from Miranda's list of supporters that the company might be
saved. And Andy & Emily bury the hatchet at the end to the
extent that the one helps groom the other (“You kept those
eyebrows though, didn't you?”)
(Prov. 30:28) “The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces.” Those palaces get dusted regularly, but the spider keeps giving it another shot and his web is up again the next day. Sure, your dreams fall through, but that's the nature of the game. Give it another go; that's how to succeed. This happens time and time again to be a major theme of the movie.
Production Values
“” (2026) was directed by David Frankel. It was written by Aline Brosh McKenna and Lauren Weisberger. It stars Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, and Lucy Liu. Their talent is well displayed. Hathaway and Streep play well off each other.
MPA rated it PG–13 for strong language and some suggestive references. Romance to the extent it exists at all, takes a back seat to workplace drama. We have a luncheon meeting that becomes “more like a date,” followed by a pseudo commitment to become “not perfect together.” And we have a breakup that's a footnote to weightier matters. The movie excels in cinematography, accessories, set design, fashion, and props. And there's the climax of the Milan fashion show that was just long enough to accommodate my bathroom break—I'm a guy. Any plot was overshadowed by all the glitter. Runtime is 2 hours.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
There was a bit of a crowd at this usually sparsely attended theater. Some guy was even in my favorite seat, but I later followed his cue to duck out for a restroom break. This one is mostly for the women and I trust they'll like it.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: No action to speak of, no physical adventure. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years with guidance. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Fit For a Friday Evening. Suspense: A few suspenseful moments. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture was cited from the King James Version, Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software
Preston, E.C.B. Sou'-West by South. Compiled in, Fifty Great Sea Stories. Copyright. London: Odhams Press, LTD. < 1937. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org