Revenge Wears Prada

It was a fine Sunday afternoon when my ex and I came home to a 4-bedroom unit we used to share and rent with friends in Makati. And there they were, Diz and Jay with scripts on hand imitating how Miranda and Emily deliver their lines from The Devil Wears Prada movie. And to be honest, it was riveting how Jay would mimic Miranda's classy and mean-ish voice.

If you're wondering where they got the full movie script, check it here! :)

For many years now, I've watched The Devil Wears Prada countless times and I'm still loving it. The way Andy transformed herself from a boring writer-wanna-be to one of the most stylist girl in Runway magazine. And I can't help but wonder... would the next sequel be as appealing as it's first? 

After a decade since the first published The Devil Wears Prada in 2003 –a juicy roman à clef about her time working for Anna Wintour that spawned a hit movie in 2006 starring Anne Hathaway as the abused assistant Andy Sachs and Meryl Streep as the Wintour-esque Miranda Priestly, the devil is back! 

Author Lauren Weisberger launched her next book –Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns, the sequel to The Devil Wears Prada that hit the shelves and was release last June 4.

But rumor has it, the critics are not happy after reading the book. Take Sherryl Connelly of New York Daily News and I quote...

“The story begins 10 years after Andrea said her f--- yous to Priestly and fled Paris. In that time, Andrea’s been dumped by boyfriend Alex, become best friends with Emily, started a new magazine and found love with Max, a gorgeous and decent rich guy who heads his own media empire. 

Inexplicably, she’s not happy. 

The hugely flawed contrivance for Andrea’s woe is a letter she finds in Max’s room on the day of their wedding. In that missive, her mother-in-law writes that Max deserves a better woman than Andrea, and lets drop that Max ran into his old girlfriend, Katherine, while he was in Bermuda for his bachelor party. 

Quite unbelievably, Andrea allows that small news to ruin not just her wedding day but her life.
Why is Andrea so upset, you ask? Well, Max had “conveniently forgotten to mention” that he had run into his ex. 

So this means what precisely? 

It should suggest nothing more than that Andrea even thinks in tired clichés. But she decides their life together is a lie. 

And in response, a reader sobs: “Oh, you tiresome twit! What is your problem? Max was so right not to tell you he saw Katherine. He had to know you’d react like a drama queen on a bender. And for no good reason. No reason at all.” 

Just as Andrea decides she’s going to leave Max — still without asking him about Katherine — she discovers she’s pregnant. So for the sake of the baby, she soldiers on in her marriage, while slyly entertaining thoughts of her old boyfriend, Alex. 

Oh, c’mon. 

Given that the novel’s premise just sucks, there’s not a lot to go on from there. Andrea and Emily have improbably become best friends and together started a luxury bridal magazine, The Plunge. Improbably again, it becomes such a newsstand hit that Miranda Priestly, still editor of Runway but now also editorial director of Elias-Clark, is intent on acquiring the magazine.
The bitch is back! Isn’t this the moment we’ve been waiting for? 

Still waiting. 

The Miranda who shows up for her few scenes in the story is sometimes kind of fun, but mostly she’s just amateurishly mean. Most telling is Andrea’s explanation to Max as to why Miranda is so horrible, terrible, awful. 

“If you’re late for lunch with Miranda Priestly, she’s not going to yell and scream and lecture you on courtesy and consideration. She’s merely going to order the exact moment she’s ready, whether you’ve arrived or not, and then she’s going to eat her lunch and leave. Does it matter to her if your kid was sick or your taxi was in an accident? ... Not for a moment. Because she doesn’t care about you at all.” 

That’s it? That’s all? A busy, powerful person acts like a busy, powerful person and we should all fear and loathe her for it? 

It happens sometimes that good characters happen to bad writers. Through no fault of her own, Weisberger is a pedestrian stylist and clumsy with plots. She simply does not have the skills to do justice to the fictional woman that Streep developed into an iconic figure. Nevermind Wintour’s contribution. 

Full disclosure: In a recent conversation with the author, I told her I liked “Revenge Wears Prada.” 

I lied politely only because the truth would have been as bad as the book. ”

Baffled as I am, I really hope the movie (in case there would be any after the mad reviews) would be given more fluffy-chic that we can devour in a movie weekend. 

Funny how some of us now would wish a different story to be seen in the movie than what we've read from the book. So what do you think? 

Order your copy of the Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns here!
Locally, you can buy a copy on National Bookstores or shop online at nationalbookstore.com