I've had my share of bad bosses. Most of my bad bosses have resembled Michael from The Office. You know the kind of boss who wants to be your friend. I've also had the new agey bosses who read all the latest books on manangement. Okay, they don't read the whole book, they read enough to learn the catch phrases: "Let's brainstorm and think outside of the box on this one," "Before I go any further, I want to seek to understand you before I attempt to be understood." They love to repeat these phrases at company meetings and retreats. At one company, the annual retreat was called an 'advance' because retreat was deemed 'too negative'. Advance was better because it meant moving forward. Of course, we discussed the same damn things every year at the 'advance' so how we were advancing was beyond me. Of course, I was accused of not being a team player because I threatened with bodily harm anyone (including management) who dared to ask me to participate in a group hug or any activity that would have me fall backwards into my co-workers arms (buuilding trust my ass).

Anyway, the Devil Wears Prada is about the kind of boss I have always avoided: the over-the-top, bitchy, petty, workaholic perfectionist. The movie might be fiction (even though it's rumored that the model for Miranda was Vogue editor Anna Wintour) but these bosses do exist in real life. And, I know people unfortunate enough to have worked for them.

Andy (Anne Hathaway) is a recent graduate of Northwestern and she's come to New York to make it as a writer. While the opportunity to work for Runway magazine as the editor's first assistant doesn't seem like much of an opportunity, it really is. While Andy doesn't put much stock into fashion or her wardrobe, working a year for fashion icon Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) will unlock any number of doors for the aspiring journalist. In an instant, the preppy writer is drowning in a world of high fashion. In order to succeed, Miranda becomes what she despises, a size 4 clothes electronically tied to the demanding diva via her Sidekick. While her transformation impresses Miranda and her top assistant Emily (Emily Blunt) it doesn't impress her boyfriend Nate (Adrian Grenier) or her friends (Tracie Thom and Rich Sommer) who feel that she's sold out for a few pair of Manolo Blahniks and Marc Jacobs bags.

The main reason to see this movie has to be Meryl Streep. With her fashion sense and that shock of gray/white hair she looks like a real life Cruella De Ville. And truly some of her demands make her seem like a true fairy tale witch: get a flight from Miami to New York in the middle of a hurricane, secure several copies of the yet unpublished Harry Potter book for her daughters, order a complete seak dinner and have it in the office within 15 minutes. Streep plays it serious and makes her impossible demands seem like totally logical and manageable feats. She is fun to watch. She also has a few senses where she actually makes

Anne Hathaway's transformation is also fun as she looses the ugly cable knit sweaters, frumpy skirts and 'sensible shoes' for stillettos, and haute coutre. I like her as an actress and she was believeable as an ambitious recent graduate who gets sucked into the world of fashion, late nights, early mornings and slavish devotion to her boss.

Stanley Tucci as her friend at the magazine, and the one who helps her create her new look, also gives a solid performance. As does Emily Blunt as the first assistant who wants to climb the fashion ladder more than anything.

While I'm sure in the book, the friends are more fleshed out, here they are very one-dimensional and aren't really given much to do. The scenes that pop in Devil are the work-related scenes. The scenes with the friends and especially the boyfriend don't add much. The work scenes are so well done that it makes the averageness of the non-work scenes that more obvious.