I almost
wish Merrill Streep weren’t such a great actress. As far as I can fathom she is without peer
amongst American cinematic divas, and she easily holds her own in company with
the famous Brits: Dench, Smith, Mirren,
etc. My problem is that she us so famous that my peculiar little first
name, Myrl, all too often gets transmogrified into Merrill, or some similar
spelling rendition. Heck, I had an
American colleague, with whom I worked in Chile on and off for fifteen years,
who never learned to call me anything else!
(Alternatively, I had a Greek colleague who called me “Moo” – but that’s
another story.)
But to get
to the review: Wow! This is a darned good movie, but Streep so
dominates it that you almost forget to
follow the plot. She is Amanda Priestly,
the sharp point on the very tip of the pinnacle of Fashion, writ large. Designers go bankrupt if she yawns at their
showings. Even her closest and most
valuable sidekick, Stanley Tucci (brilliant, as usual) is a bit afraid of
her. Her way of dismissing people
(“that’s all”) would strike fear into your heart, if you were anywhere nearby. For cool, her
way of taking off/.putting on sunglasses rivals Humphrey Bogart’s way with a
cigarette. I could go on and on, but you
get the picture – this is Streep’s movie, and she is terrific! The young people in the movie are good, too –
especially Anne Hathaway, its ostensible star, who weathers the Priestly storm,
attains success and then gives it all up for a newspaper job and, of course, young love.
Oh, the
plot? It’s a skillful send-up of the fashion
industry; the skullduggery that lurks behind all those skinny models and their
expensive clothes. Go see it; it’s a
blast. A-
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