| 88 |
New York Post
Kyle Smith
If you can tell the difference between a mule and a pump, attendance at The Devil Wears Prada is mandatory. You might have to reach back to "Funny Face" to find a fashion movie so on-trend.
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| 83 |
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
Effortless fun: It plays like a giddy horror movie with its laughs wrapped in couture gowns.
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| 80 |
The New Yorker
David Denby
Bright and crisp and funny, the movie turns dish into art--or, if not quite into art, then at least into the kind of dazzling commercial entertainment that Hollywood, in the days of George Cukor or Stanley Donen, used to turn out.
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| 80 |
Empire
Helen O'Hara
This smart and funny creation is not just wish-fulfilment for the "Sex And The City" generation -- it's a Wall Street for the 21st century.
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| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Prada just feels authentic, from its glossy look to the specific and sometimes curious behavior of the secondary and tertiary characters. To watch it is like being entertained while getting an anthropological crash course.
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| 75 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
The devil may wear Prada, but Meryl wears the crown.
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| 75 |
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
While the picture isn't brilliant, it is, at its most entertaining, a kicky, surprisingly astute throwback to bygone Hollywood social comedies.
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| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Setting her (Streep) face into a mask of composure that suggests Darth Vader by way of a Kabuki actor, the most expressive of American actresses shows how power is expressed in the lack of facial and vocal expression.
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| 75 |
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Briskly directed by "Sex and the City" veteran David Frankel, the movie is far better than the source.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
Though there is enough haute couture on display for a season of "Sex and the City" envy, it has definite off-the-rack appeal to regular moviegoers. In fact, it may be the one film this year where you'll see Manolo Blahniks and Doc Martens on women sitting in the same row.
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| 75 |
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Sinfully funny.
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| 75 |
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
The story is glossy junk begat of just-plain junk anyway: Lauren Weisberger, who wrote the hiss-and-tell roman à clef best-seller on which the picture is based, was herself an assistant to Wintour.
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| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
It's an occasion for Streep to play against a stereotype, and win. It's a rout, in fact.
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| 75 |
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
The Devil Wears Prada is two films in one: a caustic, energetic satire of the fashion world and a cautionary melodrama. The first works; the second doesn't.
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| 70 |
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
A tour de force for Streep, who gives her character an unexpected measure of depth.
|
| 70 |
Los Angeles Times
Carina Chocano
The Devil Wears Prada spins Weisberger's rant into a sharp, surprisingly funny excursion into the catty realm of women's magazines. The movie skips the condescension usually aimed at this world in favor of rapt observation.
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| 70 |
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
Miranda is played by Meryl Streep, an actress who carries nuance in her every pore, and who endows even her lighthearted comic roles with a rich implication of inner life. With her silver hair and pale skin, her whispery diction as perfect as her posture, Ms. Streep's Miranda inspires both terror and a measure of awe.
|
| 70 |
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
Takes place in the world of haute couture. And that pretty much sums up the movie. Otherwise, it would be just another Queen of Mean, boss from hell movie. But, oh, what delicious fun Meryl Streep and her conspirators have with that world.
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| 70 |
Variety
Todd McCarthy
Streep single-handedly elevates this sitcomy but tolerably entertaining adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's bestselling 2003 roman a clef about a personal assistant's year of chic hell under the thumb of the dragon lady of the fashion world.
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| 70 |
Washington Post
Jennifer Frey
Streep makes it work. Streep makes it fun .
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| 70 |
Film Threat
Pete Vonder Haar
Actually one of the better comedies I've seen this year speaks volumes for the quality of the performances and the caliber of the script.
|
| 70 |
Slate
Dana Stevens
A movie that revels in pleasure: the pleasure of fashion, of luxury, of power and ambition. It's also a tremendous pleasure to watch.
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| 67 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
The bad news in this kinder, gentler, more subtle performance is that, by playing the woman (Streep) as less of a devil, the dynamic that propels the story loses much of its drive and energy, and what's left is a kind of high-class "Gidget" movie.
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| 67 |
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
May be accurate around the edges, but at its heart it's a fairy tale.
|
| 63 |
USA Today
Claudia Puig
The comic appeal of The Devil Wears Prada is the cinematic equivalent of a size 2 - wafer-thin and ultimately lacking in meat and substance.
|
| 63 |
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
A lightweight, formulaic piece of fluff, but you wouldn't know that by Meryl Streep's performance.
|
| 60 |
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
Frankel has cut, pasted and rejiggered the novel, mostly for the better. As adapted by Aline Brosh McKenna, The Devil Wears Prada is crisper, less self-righteous and mercifully shorter than its intermittently funny but interminable source.
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| 60 |
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
A scantily clad revenge memoir.
|
| 60 |
Newsweek
David Ansen
When the satire stays focused on Streep or her snooty Brit assistant (Emily Blunt), "Prada" is malicious fun. But the central story about how smart, idealistic Anne Hathaway, as Miranda's drably dressed new assistant, loses her soul in pursuit of success and great shoes is dramatically anorexic.
|
| 58 |
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
They put the material on lifts - and end up tripping into TV dramedy land.
|
| 50 |
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
Probably supposed to be half fashion fantasy, half satire of the fashion world. What a drag that it's not enough of either.
|
| 50 |
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Mistrustful of its audience, it's full of actors -- apart from Streep -- playing broad attitudes rather than characters. Crafted like a high end TV show, it's a sort of video Vogue -- lite, brite and trite.
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| 50 |
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
It's a self-blunting satire, a toothless attack on fashionistas that twists around tortuously and ends up biting (well, gumming) its own tail.
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| 50 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
Sometimes actors get parts so rich that they almost can't help but make meals of them. Playing a frosty, high-powered editor in The Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep turns the role into a four-course dinner and shows up with her own dessert...But it's hard to care about what's going on whenever she's offscreen.
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| 50 |
Dallas Observer
Rob Nelson
More "Pretty Woman" than "Working Girl," The Devil Wears Prada really lives to give its angel a high-class makeover.
|
| 50 |
Premiere
Aaron Hillis
So stupendously funny at times that she (Streep) nearly salvages the whole thing.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
An agreeably shallow comedy.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Meryl Streep is indeed poised and imperious as Miranda, and Anne Hathaway is a great beauty who makes a convincing career girl. I liked Stanley Tucci, too, as Nigel... But I thought the movie should have reversed the roles played by Grenier and Baker. Grenier comes across not like the old boyfriend but like the slick New York writer, and Baker seems the embodiment of Midwestern sincerity.
|
| 50 |
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
The best performance comes from Stanley Tucci as the Runway art director. Tucci presents a homosexual man without a trace of cartoon--shrewd, skilled, and weathered without being worn. It is a well-judged and accomplished piece of work.
|
| 40 |
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
If you shut down your brain and simply take in the wardrobe and performances by Streep and Blunt you'll have a swell time, like aimlessly flipping the pages of a fashion magazine.
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