Director David Frankel’s The Devil Wears Prada is a light romp through the world of high fashion, as seen through the eyes of a young woman working at a fictional fashion magazine. Based on the 2003 bestseller, Frankel’s film is much lighter and more fun than Lauren Weisberger’s vitriolic novel. Weisberger worked as a personal assistant to Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue, and based the novel partly, or perhaps mostly, on that experience.

Andrea Sachs (Anne Hathaway) has recently graduated from university with a degree in literature and dreams of writing for The New Yorker. Having no luck finding employment there, she is sent by the human resources department of Elias & Clark, a large publishing conglomerate, to interview for a position as second personal assistant to Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), editor-in-chief of Runway, the world’s premier fashion magazine. Miranda hires Andrea for her spunk and honesty, and despite her complete lack of knowledge of fashion. But Andrea doesn’t fit in with her new boss or the rest of the Runway crowd. She’s not quite as skinny as the other girls, doesn’t dress with a sense of fashion importance -- a requisite for a Runway employee -- and is an easy target for the fashionistas with whom she works.

Miranda, on the other hand, is an immaculately coutured fashion diva who enjoys the power of her position as head of one of the most influential fashion magazines. Designers, photographers, and her own staff fear her. One morning, Miranda berates and humiliates Andrea to the point of tears. On the verge of quitting, Andrea confides in Nigel (Stanley Tucci), a senior fashion editor and her only friend and ally at the magazine. Nigel sees a goodness in Andrea not apparent in the other women hired by Runway, and decides to help her fit in and project the right image.

The film treatment of The Devil Wears Prada departs from the book in softening and humanizing some of the characters. In the novel, Andrea is much less likable. She strikes back at the publishing conglomerate for her bad treatment with excessive tipping and spending at the company’s expense, by wiping her dirty hands on Miranda’s expensive dry-cleaning, by serving Miranda lunch on dirty dishes, and through other passive-aggressive means. But as written by screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna and portrayed by Hathaway, Andrea is a soft, gentle creature; we regret the trials she’s put through.

Miranda, too, is given a more human side in the film. We see her as a flawed character who projects a harsh exterior to hide her shortcomings and failures. Meryl Streep superbly captures both Miranda’s vulnerability and the icy exterior that protects it.

McKenna has done a good job of capturing the fun aspects of Weisberger’s novel. Writing this story may have been a catharsis for Weisberger, but I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I did the film. David Frankel’s The Devil Wears Prada is fluff -- but good fluff -- and most certainly better than the novel that inspired it.

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