We’ll Always Have ParisThere isn’t a ton of rehashing of the first movie’s events—Miranda doesn’t seem to even remember most of Andy and Emily’s Runw
We’ll Always Have Paris
There isn’t a ton of rehashing of the first movie’s events—Miranda doesn’t seem to even remember most of Andy and Emily’s Runway tenures. But the trip to Paris Fashion Week that Andy attended in Emily’s place looms immense. At one point, Andy reminisces about wearing Chanel and going to Paris, and an Eiffel Tower print adorns Andy’s at-home office. Later, during a funeral for Elias-Clark Publications chairman Irv Ravitz, Miranda’s jazz-musician husband Stuart (played by Kenneth Branagh) plays a piece of music that can be heard during the original’s Paris sequence.
Making Nice With Nigel
“Hello, six,” longtime Runway art director Nigel says in greeting to Andy, a nickname she earned in the first film when she dropped from the ever-feared size 8 to a size 6 after a few months working in fashion. As they did in the original, Nigel and Andy take a midday spin through the fashion closet. But this time, there is justice for Nigel, betrayed by Miranda in the first film when she steals his promised promotion to save her own position at the magazine. “She’s done versions of that to me ever since,” Nigel tells Andy in the sequel, renewing her commitment to get him the respect from Miranda that he’s rightfully owed.
Coming Up Carbs
In a third act mea culpa that feels reminiscent of Andy and Nate’s makeup from the first film, Emily apologizes to Andy for her latest round of workplace indiscretions. While doing so, an older Emily does something that her calorie-counting former self would have found impossible: eats from the bread basket. “Shared carbs have no calories,” Emily tells a stunned Andy. In the original, Emily declared that Andy didn’t deserve the designer clothing from a stolen work trip to Paris: “I mean, you eat carbs, for Christ’s sake!”
An Emotional Ending
There aren’t many literal fashion Easter eggs to be found, that is until the film’s final sequence, in which Andy wears an argyle cerulean blue sweater vest—a nod to her first-day outfit (and the withering Miranda monologue it inspired) in the 2006 movie. All is well at the fashion magazine as a newly-appreciated Nigel affectionately tells Andy, “Forever my girl.” The final shot features Andy, Nigel, and Miranda all working in their offices, as the camera pans out and zooms away from the high-rise building in what may be an homage to Working Girl (1988), a thematic inspiration for Prada’s screenwriter.
COMMENTS