Film Review of the Week

Comedy

The Devil Wears Prada 2 (12A)

Review: JInsults and withering glares are back in fashion as Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci dust off their glad rags for a belated sequel to the sharp-suited 2006 comedy based on Lauren Weisberger’s novel. If I could liken director David Frankel’s picture to catwalk couture, it would be one of those outlandish avant-garde creations that wilfully defy practicality. The Devil Wears Prada 2 is fun to look at but not something any of us truly need.

Times are tough for Runway magazine and its imperious editor-in-chief, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), who is nervously awaiting the announcement of her promotion from company chairman Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman). Advertising spend is falling, even for the coveted September edition, restricting budgets for glossy photo shoots masterminded by trusted lieutenant Nigel Kipling (Stanley Tucci). When one of Runway’s articles draws attention for the wrong reasons, Irv hastily appoints award-winning writer Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) as features editor with a remit to restore the magazine’s reputation for quality journalism.

Miranda is certain Andy will not last long. “All I need to do is bide my time until you fail, which you will,” coldly remarks the editor-in-chief. Andy persists, crafting a heartfelt apology that is widely applauded by the industry, and a series of thought-provoking articles. Meanwhile, Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt), now a senior executive at Dior – one of Runaway’s key advertisers – applies pressure to Miranda while her former nemesis is under fire. Tensions rise and Miranda and Andy continue to pull the magazine in opposite directions.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is not as consistently funny and biting as the original, despite the best efforts of a glittering array of returning talent behind and in front of the camera. The first film was released four years before Instagram started digging rabbit holes and one year before the iPhone revolutionised the handheld market, so popular culture has warped beyond recognition in the intervening decades. Screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna deviates from the books published by Lauren Weisberger to contrive a timely battle for legacy print media’s survival that navigates the choppy waters of citizen journalism and cancel culture.

The script is peppered with zinging one-liners (“May the bridges I burn light the way”; “Stockholm called: they want their syndrome back!”) but some laughs feel second hand. If nothing else, it is a sustainable sequel that recycles and resells. Streep glides serenely through conflict-laden scenes and rekindles a winning double act with Tucci’s unerringly loyal confidante. Hathaway warmly embraces Andy’s naivety to facilitate a jarring plot twist but her romantic subplot with a nice guy (Patrick Brammall) outside the fashion industry is superfluous. Tongue-in-cheek cameos by the likes of Lady Gaga and Donatella Versace ensure Frankel’s sequel can never be accused of dressing “head-to-toe in performance synthetics”. Perish the thought!

Horror

Hokum (15)

Review: The term “hokum” appears to date back to the early 20th century when sections of the theatre community applied it to exaggerated performance on a stage, designed to elicit a laugh or strong response from an audience. The word has become synonymous with nonsense, particularly in relation to theatre, film and TV work, and some linguists suggest it might be a portmanteau of hocus pocus and bunkum. Writer-director Damian McCarthy savours negative connotations of hokum in an efficient but disappointingly scare-free haunted house horror steeped in Irish folklore.

Best-selling American author Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) is struggling to find the perfect ending to his latest novel chronicling the adventures of a conquistador (Austin Amelio) and young companion (Ezra Carlisle). Hopeful a change of scenery might reinvigorate his creative juices, Ohm travels to Ireland to spread the ashes of his parents in the grounds of Bilberry Woods Hotel, where the late couple stayed on their honeymoon.

Ohm is an unapologetic misanthrope and angry alcoholic. Disdain drips from his lips as he cruelly snuffs out the literary ambitions of hotel bellhop Alby (Will O’Connell). He is similarly cold and unfriendly towards front desk manager Mal (Peter Coonan), resident handyman Fergal (Michael Patric) and bartender and maid Fiona (Florence Ordesh). When Alby shares his close encounter with the witch (Sioux Carroll), who lives in the Honeymoon Suite, Ohm dismisses the tall tale as pure hokum. Soon after, a member of the staff goes missing and Ohm goes looking for disquieting answers, accompanied by magic mushroom-fuelled loner Jerry (David Wilmot), who lives in the woods and brews psychedelic concoctions to open himself to messages from the spirit world.

Shot on location in West Cork, Hokum lives up to its title with an outlandish dramatic conceit suggesting witchcraft and wickedness behind closed doors. Writer-director McCarthy deftly exploits tropes and subverts them for polite chills, including a protracted sequence in a dimly lit basement that strongly recalls the subterranean horror of the 2022 film Barbarian. His script goes out of its way to make Ohm as disagreeable and deliberately uncaring as possible in the opening half hour. Naturally, there is an attempt at redemption but when the character becomes trapped inside the Honeymoon Suite and discovers the room’s dark and twisted secrets, it’s hard to muster sympathy as the writer descends into hell on screen.

Scott doesn’t require dialogue to powerfully convey his malcontent’s creeping dread and the camera remains tight on his face when darker elements of this contemporary fairy tale manifest. Happy ever afters require payment in pain and suffering, and there is plenty of both in McCarthy’s polished and clinical picture.