Young woman (Anne Hathaway) wants to be a writer but needs money so accepts job as personal assistant to high-powered fashion magazine woman (Meryl Streep). Though naturally an earth-girl, she slowly gets sucked into the ethos of high fashion and competitive life-style, until at length she sees what that life seems to do to people, so has to make a decision whether to quit and go back to the earth values including the abandoned Raggedy-Andy boyfriend.
In typical Hollywood fashion, the attempt is made to make this film into something other than a cliché; but the anti-clichés are themselves clichés. For example, the inner circle of friends is racially diverse. And it is the Negress in the circle that calls Andrea on the carpet for her unfaithfulness. Andrea uses an androgynous nickname. Her frizzy-haired boyfriend cooks. And so forth. Hollywood seems to think this sort of thing is edgy and new, even though it is exactly the sort of stuff we expect them to dish up. And is that not the essence of the cliché?
The story aims at young women by simultaneously wallowing in the world of fashion and pretending to critique its superficiality.
In reality, even the critique is misplaced. Granted, there is probably not a whole lot that can be said for the big business of the fashion industry. But from the standpoint of Andrea’s Sitz im Leben, what would be so terrible about spending a couple years totally devoted to work (whether in fashion industry or somewhere else)? The relentless pursuit of excellence demanded by Miranda could only have a salutary effect on a young person emerging from college full of herself and her own exaggerated sense of integrity and importance.
Meryl Streep does some good straight-faced comedy. The acceptance of fornication and taking the Lord’s name are a continuing blight from Hollywood, though here less dominating than often is the case.
