June 29, 2006

Sympathy for the she-devil

Salon has an intriguing review of The Devil Wears Prada. I never considered reading the novel, and I still have no interest in it, but I may end up seeing the film based on this.

Notably, the review is written by Rebecca Traister, not Stephanie Zacharek (whose reviews I normally can't stand).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Read the book, saw the movie. What the movie failed to show was the complete and total loss of self on the part of Andy Sachs. The book is (as paraphrased from the Washington Post Express) painfully detail oriented but doesn't shut out the fact that Andy lost a significant amount of weight, became a chain smoker, drank to excess, stopped eating, etc. to appease her boss. The movie (probably due to the PG-13 rating) omits these important details.
**SPOILERS**
I could be wrong, but in the book, I don't think Andy sleeps with the writer. I don't think he's a writer in the book, come to think of it. Moreover, at the book's conclusion, she goes back home to figure her life out. That's what I remember, I'll have to re-read. The movie wraps up nicely with Andy taking a job with the New York Mirror, Miranda smiling as she sees Andy from across the street, Emily (the fired "first assistant") getting her job back, the boyfriend (ex-boyfriend? What are we going to do with this guy?!) getting a job in Boston, etc. I suppose I'm a bit disappointed that the film's directors took great artistic license with the book (ha, or my memory of it).

My critique of chick lit is that it's all very formulaic. I read the book in two days, tops, when I was ill last summer. Easy, short, my life's not any better because of it.

The review in Salon; accurate. I think it would be interesting to hear the opinions of other staffofra readers regarding said review, the movie, and the chances of a successful female presidential candidate in 2008.

Thanks for the post!

Noumena said...

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I can comment on the chances of a female president-elect in 2008.

Basically, I think the odds are very low. Conventional wisdom dictates that a successful presidential candidate has to have a high national profile. This means the shortlist of CW-plausible female candidates is Hillary Clinton, Condoleeza Rice, and Oprah Winfrey. The first and second are, I think, disliked by pretty much everybody.

Now, CW is completely wrong about this. Both Clinton and Dubya -- not to mention plenty of other past presidents -- were governors, almost completely unknown outside of their home states before entering the race. Who knows who's going to bubble up to the surface a year and a half from now?