Meryl Streep: Our Lady of Dolce & Gabbana, with nary an accent in sight

A frustrating example of a movie whose director and cast wish the source material didn't exist, The Devil Wears Prada wants to have it both ways -- the world of high fashion is so mahvelous but Not If You Lose Your Soul -- and ends up as declasse as a Prada handbag bought in 2001. A shame, cuz this adaptation of the thin-as-a-tea-leaf 2002 bestseller has two of the year's best performances: Stanley Tucci as a fop who bears some rather nasty claws when cornered; and Emily Blunt as an acidulous coworker right out of a Billy Wilder film.

As for RoboStreep: most of my friends know that her startling technique, masterful ease in swallowing continental Europe in one gulp, and purported range impress me as much as a dog begging for a treat. Her best roles (with the exception of her superb lovelorn Italian woman in The Bridges of Madison County) have traditionally ones which either exploit her unyielding frostiness (A Cry in the Dark, Out of Africa) or allow her to loosen up (the overrated Adaptation; and rather good opposite, um, Rosanne Barr in She-Devil). Miranda Priestly, editor of Runway and fashion czarina, allows Streep to fuse both strengths. I've never enjoyed a Streep performance so much. Miranda's so terrifying that she doesn't see the point in raising her voice above a crisply enunciated whisper (J. Hoberman: "Streep is the scariest, most nuanced, funniest movie villainess since Tilda Swinton's nazified White Witch). Director David Frankel does right by taking Miranda seriously; never once does the movie crack a joke at her expense. And Anne Hathaway is a worthy pupil. She's an intelligent actress (watch her again as the shrewish, wise Texan hausfrau in Brokeback Mountain), uninhibited by her beauty. A shame the book and movie shackle her to a grunge-lite boyfriend with anatomically correct stubble who has to murmur variations on that perennial howler, "I don't know who you are anymore."