Meryl Streep is back as the icy fashion editor Miranda Priestly in a sequel that, against all odds, actually exists. For those who thought the original's ending was definitive – Andy walks away, Miranda stays – the new film finds a way to bring everyone back for another round of designer combat.
The plot picks up years after the first film, with Andy (Anne Hathaway) now a successful magazine editor in her own right. When a corporate shake-up at Runway puts Miranda's reign at risk, the two women are forced into an uneasy alliance. The cat-and-mouse dynamic remains, but the power balance has shifted.
Director David Frankel keeps the pace brisk, and the wardrobe is, predictably, to die for. But the film's real strength is in its quieter moments: a lunch scene between Streep and Hathaway that crackles with unspoken history, and a monologue from Miranda that reminds us why she's one of cinema's great antiheroes.
Is it as sharp as the original? Not quite. But it's a respectable, often funny, and surprisingly heartfelt return to a world where the devil wears Prada – and still looks fantastic doing it.