Bend it like the Prada-clad Devil

I rented two movies this weekend: Bend it like Beckham, and The Devil Wears Prada. BILB was cute – I enjoyed watching the Indian families and their social gatherings. There were a few exiting “girls kick ass!” moments, too. 🙂 But it’s quite shallow in a lot of ways.

The Devil was much more disturbing. If you haven’t seen it, don’t let me discourage you, but don’t read this review because I’m about to spoil the plot.

Anne Hathaway is so, so, pretty. I would love to look exactly like her. But the problem with this movie was that she starts out as a likable character (Andrea), and gradually becomes less and less so. For some reason, she decides that working for the nation’s top fashion magazine editor will be her big break in journalism. Didn’t seem that believable to me, ’cause she wasn’t originally interested in fashion journalism, and the job wasn’t writing. It was a whole lot of other tasks, but no writing.

“A million girls would kill for this job.” Andy is told this about 3 or 4 times by different people. She starts out as not included in that million, and ends up as one of them. I mean, she didn’t kill anyone in the movie. But she sure neglected, even abused, her relationships with just about everyone who mattered to her. Some really cool, laid-back witty friends, and her boyfriend – I have to say, a total hottie. And she trashed her integrity too, with a blatant, obvious, stereotypical sleaze-ball man. I don’t see how any woman watching the movie could sympathize with her choice to do so. I mean, he was so sleazy. And her boyfriend (recently ex’d) was so, so, cute! He treated her well enough, making her gourmet grilled cheese after hours from his job as a chef. He was such a normal, likeable guy.

The shared thematic downfall of both of these movies is that in each the main character, a young woman, pulls a lot of “assertive” moves. But she doesn’t become a better person for it. She plays fast and loose with her values and the people that matter to her, but there aren’t any lasting consequences. Everything comes out pretty much OK, everybody’s happy. There was maybe a normal amount of character development, but no character building. No deeper message, no resonance with human nature, emotions or motives.