Monday, January 14, 2008

The Pradaic Devil

A fun movie. Snappy dialogue, rich characters, the incomparable Meryl Streep, glamour and glitz.

Except for one thing that really annoyed me; the writers wimped out. They wimped out when the protagonist, Andy, was chosen over her supervisor, Emily, to make the trip-of-a-lifetime to Paris. And Andy had to break the news. It should be a difficult moment; Andy, as the up-and-coming acolyte, has to tell her mentor that she has been replaced. It was stressed at several points during the movie that the entire focus of Emily's life is this trip to Paris.

So it should be an intense moment. Andy, who has clawed her way up in the face of her own doubts, the loss of her friends (and boyfriend), and the toughness of her boss, must tell the person who trained her that it is now Andy who is top dog. Emily loses; Emily is out. Emily is being replaced. There should be anger! Angst! Recriminations! Shattered dreams! Catfights!

But none of this happened.

Conveniently, Emily gets hit by a taxi and breaks her leg. She can't go to Paris anyway; she is still angry that she couldn't have gone but it's a whole different story. Andy is exonerated, she didn't have to be cruel, she didn't have to take and then impose a morally difficult decision. She didn't have to carry the responsibility of the act, she wasn't forced to confront the results of her actions.

Boring. A letdown.

The writers wimped out.



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