Should You Actually Go See ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ in Theaters?

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Last night, Cinema Society hosted a special screening of Spring’s most anticipated film: The Devil Wears Prada 2. The screening took place at the SAG AFTRA theater on W 54th Street in midtown Manhattan and was followed by an afterparty at a private residence on the 120th floor of an ultraluxe building on New York’s Billionaires’ Row.

Attendees included Martha Stewart, Clive Davis, Susan Lucci, Lena Hall (Your Friends & Neighbors), Eunice Bae (Your Friends & Neighbors), Helena Christensen, Brett Goldstein (Ted Lasso), Odelya Halevi (Law & Order), Louisa Jacobson (The Gilded Age), Lauren Santo Domingo, Joseph Cross (Big Little Lies), Laya DeLeon Hayes (The Equalizer), Noma Dumezweni (Law &Order: SVU), Dominic Fumusa (Godfather of Harlem, Dexter: Resurrection) & Ilana Levine, Jacob Gutierrez (Big Mistakes), Seth Herzog (The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon), Jackie Hoffman (Only Murders in the Building), Sydney Lemmon (Love Story), Tiler Peck & Roman Mejia, Laila Robins (The Boys, The Walking Dead), Huma Abedin, Dan Abrams (ABC News), Stella Baker (Tell Me Your Secrets), Pat Cleveland, Amy Fine Collins, Marina Rust, Peter Davis, Ann Dexter-Jones, Sante D’Orazio, Desiree Gruber, Steven Kolb, Tyler Lain (Animal Kingdom), Alex Lundqvist, Sean Meehan (The Normal Heart), Nicole Miller, Dale Moss, Wendi Murdoch, Allison Sarofim, Kevin Sharkey, Sophie Sumner, Frederique Van Der Wal, Tara Westwood (Law & Order), Lise Evans, Daniel Benedict, and Cinema Society founder Andrew Saffir.

So, how was the movie? Good. At times even great. Especially when Emily Blunt was on screen. She stole absolutely every scene she was in and was the perfect antidote to Anne Hathaway’s weepy and needy Andy. Honestly, if the whole film had just focused on Emily, I would have been thrilled. Which is not to say that there weren’t other good performances. Stanley Tucci was wonderful as Nigel. Meryl Streep, too — the scenes with her assistant (played by Bridgerton‘s Simone Ashley) policing her language during meetings so she wouldn’t get in trouble with HR were hysterical — though her Miranda Priestly did feel somewhat diminished this time around. Less imperious. Less threatening. And more… perplexed? More like she was just treading water, trying to keep from drowning in a changing media landscape. Which felt very real, in a way.

In fact, the film did an excellent job overall of portraying the dramatic changes that have taken place in the fashion media industry in the 20 years since the original debuted — the shift from print to digital and the way that has altered priorities, changes in office and work culture, and the struggles of many older professionals who came up through the old system to adjust. Priestly, this time around, seems more bitter and tired and desperate than in the previous film — forced to compromise and acquiesce in ways she hates and has never had to before — which feels right for 2026.

Ironically, the least satisfying character in the film is probably Anne Hathaway‘s. Twenty years later, her Andy Sachs is just as wide-eyed and naive as ever — earnest to the point of irritation and even less capable of controlling her emotions in her 40s than she was in her 20s. Seriously, Hathaway’s eyes fill with tears at least half a dozen times over the course of the film and her loyalty to Miranda — while an understandable callback to the original film — felt silly and unearned. Any growth her character experienced at the end of the first film when she exited Miranda’s car and tossed her phone into that fountain in Paris appears to have been completely lost the moment she walks back into Miranda’s office, which is too bad. If for no other reason than that a harder-edged Andy would have made for more interesting and dynamic scene work. Then again, how many of us have found ourselves falling back into old patterns when confronted with people and situations from our past? In that way, Andy’s desperate need for Miranda’s approval makes total sense. It just feels like there was more fun to be had if the filmmakers had taken that character in a slightly different direction.

Still, the movie is absolutely worth seeing. And in a theater. It’s legitimately funny and the clothes are spectacular. Even the extras are dressed to the nines and the grandeur of the fashion wants a big screen to showcase it.

Also Emily Blunt. Seriously, she steals the show.

Check out more pics from the event below.