film | Evil employer

Decently sporty if not a full-tilt trendsetter, THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA never quite adapts Lauren Weisberger's rudimentary beach-read into the fantabulously snarky clotheshorse exposé you might expect from its high-glam trappings. That's probably because this Devil, more cuddly than catty, wields a semi-dull pitchfork whenever Meryl Streep — as the über-cranky editor of a swank couture magazine called Runway — and Anne Hathaway — as the hopelessly mousy aspiring journalist who lands a job as her personal gofer — aren't engaged in a series of wickedly funny boss-from-hell scenarios. For example, your job woes might not seem so bad after Streep, playing a character allegedly inspired by Vogue empress Anna Wintour, demands that Hathaway nab her a copy of the new Harry Potter — as in, the one that has yet to be published.

For a good while, The Devil Wears Prada chugs along merrily, transplanting the fairy-tale outline of Hathaway's own The Princess Diaries — and, to be fair, countless chick-flick makeovers before it — into Lifestyles of the Jetset and Anorexic, with the superlative Streep (prediction: at least a nomination for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy at next year's Golden Globes) a perfect evil queen for Project Runway addicts, and Hathaway gently glowing as a size-six (oh my god!) Cinderella who you long to see finally cut loose with a verbal bitchslap aimed squarely at her domineering taskmaster. (Sadly, the most apropos retort clashes with the PG-13 rating.) My Summer of Love's Emily Blunt, as Streep's first assistant, does a terrific riff on wicked-stepsister animus, while the obligatory role of the fairy godmother is, of course, filled by a flamboyant art coordinator (Stanley Tucci, quipping fast and furious) who favors expensive Jimmy Choos over that whole tired glass-slipper thing.

The direction of small-screen vet David Frankel begins to grow naggingly made-for-television as Aline Brosh McKenna's script shoehorns Hathaway into a dull romantic triangle with her nice-guy chef boyfriend (Entourage's perpetually stubbled Adrien Grenier) and a ladies'-man novelist (slimy Simon Baker, dressed like a bad Queer Eye experiment), and the movie's misfired climax hinges on dramatic personnel shake-ups (absent from the novel) that threaten to morph the narrative into Disclosure Lite. Did I care? Honey, no. I merely hoped the fierce mental walk-off between Hathaway's bookish beauty and Streep's bellicose beast would build and build and build to a beau-monde jihad. Regrettably, it doesn't, but these two ladies' valiant efforts keep Prada in fashion. B-