Amid all the luxurious high fashion and expensive high-heeled stilettos, “The Devil Wears Prada 2” reminds us of something else unattainable in today’s world. No, it is not a baby-blue Marc Jacobs bag that is “sold out everywhere.” It is, instead, a stable editorial job at a respectable publication that is more interested in serious journalism than consolidating with a tech-bro mindset and turning into a content farm before vanishing forever. Taking a tonal cue from its predecessor, the film serves up a welcome dose of reality, too: this time, about just how bad things are everywhere in media.

The great Anne Hathaway returns as the delightful and talented Andy Sachs, now working as the kind of serious journalist she always wanted to be before becoming a Runway Magazine dropout in the first movie, which was directed by David Frankel and written by Aline Brosh McKenna in an adaptation of Lauren Weisberger’s bestseller. (Frankel and McKenna are also at the helm of this original story.)

Twenty years have passed since the release of the first film, and since the flip-phones depicted in it, when Andy was hired to serve as editorial legend Miranda Priestly’s (Meryl Streep, in an iconic turn) second assistant in the fashion world, and left her job abruptly during a Paris fashion week trip in the midst of a moral awakening.

The first movie opened a door for Andy by its end, which the sequel abruptly closes at the beginning. Adding insult to injury, Andy is about to accept a prestigious journalism award when her entire table receives the same text message that practically fires them on the spot. This kind of thing happens routinely in journalism these days after a soulless big company or an ignorant billionaire swallows up an outlet and its proud legacy. It is only realistic that layoffs would eventually find Andy, regardless of how talented she is. Still, she accepts her award in tears, delivering a passionate speech about the sorry state of affairs that we’re all braving in the real world.

Enter Runway and Miranda again, after Andy mysteriously lands a new job at her first professional home to reshape the editorial direction of the magazine. Battling with a PR nightmare after the magazine’s accidental praise of a highly unethical supplier, neither Miranda nor her right-hand Nigel (Stanley Tucci, wonderful) recalls Andy at first glance. She is promptly placed in an embarrassing office that looks like a stockroom and paired with the hardworking assistant Jin (Helen J Shen), who is as smart and ambitious as the young Andy. Meanwhile, Miranda’s two assistants are Amari (Simone Ashley) and Charlie (Caleb Hearon), both intriguing enough but underdeveloped.

The new Miranda lives in a different world – a world where abusive bosses got their reckoning in more immediate terms, a world where work-life balance gained more urgency since Covid, and a world where print publications lost their relevance (as well as budgets) amid mindless online noise and click-driven success metrics that drive down quality.

Throughout the film, there are signs of that loss of relevance in Miranda’s eyes. Streep knowingly portrays her not with overt authority and confidence, but with an undercurrent of defeat. In that, Miranda no longer seems sure of her place in a world of content that she wants to rule. But she seems lost in other ways too – it’s almost like neither Frankel nor McKenna knew what exactly to do with her. She is a bit softened, but not entirely – she still reaches for an offensive remark or two as Miranda does. But while those quietly delivered insults are consistent with her character in the first movie, they feel underbaked here and land like afterthoughts of a script trying to piece together a new story while winking at the old one.

That lackluster story development sadly reflects on the rest of the characters, too, including Miranda’s former first assistant Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt, also terrific), now working for Dior, considering whether or not to allocate her budget elsewhere amid Runway’s PR troubles. The movie goes out of its way to give us the fans what we want with winks at “florals for spring,” renewed old grudges, and emotional awakenings, the most memorable of which belongs to Nigel. But what it forgets to do is take the audience on a character-driven journey, as in the first movie, where everyone feels essential and every dot is connected. Much like the outlets bought out of greed and turned into a random assortment of clickbait posts, this edition feels like a disjointed collection of serviceable yet forgettable scenes.

Also taking a backseat here is the directorial style. The masterful opening sequence of the original movie that introduces us to the notorious Priestly by its end and unfolds like a superbly edited short film in its own right doesn’t have an equivalent here. Neither does a transformed Andy’s seamless walk through NYC streets and Runway hallways in different outfits.

It’s nice to reunite with old characters that we love, witness a healthy dose of fan servicing. But you can’t help but wish that this edition of the story was a bit more… groundbreaking.