Elton John’s The Devil Wears Prada is sumptuous but unmemorable

The Devil Wears Prada is a fairy tale about an aspiring female novelist, Andy, who receives a job offer from Runway, the nastiest and most influential fashion magazine in America. Miranda, the editor, is a Botoxed uber-bitch who doesn’t really want to hire Andy, but does anyway. And Andy doesn’t really want to work in fashion, but does anyway. Slightly odd.

Andy is like Paul Pennyfeather in Decline and Fall, a bland but trustworthy cipher who bears witness to a fascinating world of excess and corruption. She’s barely a character, more a device. The best lines are delivered by others. Miranda (Vanessa Williams) specialises in toxic putdowns. ‘Is there some reason that my coffee isn’t here? Has she died or something?’

At an editorial conference she notices Andy’s ‘lumpy blue sweater’, which prompts her to summarise the fashion industry in a famous 60-second speech. The director ruins this iconic moment by adding musical chords and disruptive stage business. Bad move. The words do the job on their own. Despite this slip-up, the speech got a round of applause.

The real subject of the story is workplace bullying, which it promotes as a moral virtue. Miranda is the most heartless and vicious boss imaginable and yet her staff dote on her and give her everything she wants. But because she’s invincible, she has little room to develop as a character. Andy is also rather inert narratively and so our focus drifts to her office rival, Emily, who comes across as hard-hearted, ambitious and sympathetic. (An excellent bit of show-stealing work from Amy Di Bartolomeo.)

Emily dreams of accompanying Miranda to Paris on a business trip but she contracts flu and ends up in hospital, where a hunky doctor catches her eye.