Lauren Weisberger’s novel, The Devil Wears Prada, was ridiculous and shallow. It was embarrassing to even read of such people as those “fictitiously” presented in the story of Andy Sachs who comes to New York to be a serious journalist, but can only secure a job as second assistant to Miranda Priestly, editor-in-chief of Runway fashion magazine and the most influential, as well as feared person in the industry. But the movie is a different matter entirely and is quite entertaining.

Meryl Streep is queen in her field and makes every role so much her own that no one else can be visualized as having ever been considered. Playing the role of Miranda is no exception as Meryl expressed an array of emotions including condescension, disregard, anger, frailty, fear, and despair. She was pivotal in bringing to life a weak novel with preposterous caricatures and making it a wonderful on-screen story possessing interesting, multi-layered characters. Also strong was Anne Hathaway as Andy. She captured and conveyed the struggle of one slowly losing dreams and nearly selling out. Stanley Tucci rounds out the trio that makes this worth seeing. He delicately played Nigel, the aging, obliging right hand of Miranda who has lost his chance to fulfill his own aspirations in the fashion business.

As the story opens, Andy is a frumpy size 6 writer in a world of 0s and 2s. She is surprisingly chosen by Miranda to be her new assistant/punching bag. At first it is a complete disaster as Andy wrestles with bafflement at the world in which she finds herself. However, soon, with the assistance of Nigel, Andy is donning Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, and Versace as she tries to impress Miranda and accomplish a host of near-impossible tasks. Unfortunately, as she works harder to please Miranda, Andy begins to lose touch with her friends, her live-in boyfriend Nate ( Adrian ), and her goals of being a journalist. She gets very caught up and tempted finding herself at several crossroads with each decision pulling her seemingly further down a path she originally did not want to travel. One can safely assume that in the end, Andy’s soul is intact, but she has grown and learned a lot from an environment that months before served only as the butt of jokes for her intellectual circle.

There were many subtleties that made this the rare occasion of a movie being better than the book on which it is based. The Devil Wears Prada is my surprise of the summer.