The Devil Wears Prada 2 has finally strutted back into cinemas twenty years later, wearing couture, carrying emotional baggage, and clutching a triple-shot espresso like its life depends on it.
TDWP2 dropped a few weeks ago, and here are my two cents. While the internet has been serving mixed reviews hotter than a Runway office meltdown, I think it’s important to remain impartial about what we actually expected from this sequel. Most audiences walked into the cinema hoping to love her once again, despite hating Miranda Priestly, the icy queen of fashion herself. Instead, the film delivers something quieter, stranger, and honestly a little sadder.
Source: 20th Century Studios
A Changed Miranda for a Changed Industry
On the surface, the film explores the fashion industry and what appears to be the downfall of Miranda. Her fire feels dimmed and her sharpness softer. But the truth is, what worked twenty years ago simply cannot survive untouched in 2026. Cancel culture, digital outrage, and public accountability changed the world, and they changed her too. Audiences expected the same terrifying editor who could destroy someone with a glance and the word “groundbreaking,” but the film pushes against that expectation in a surprisingly human way.
I also appreciated the growth of Andrea Sachs. Twenty years later, she no longer feels like the overwhelmed girl drowning in garment bags and impossible expectations. She carries confidence now — a woman who has lived, failed, adapted, and learned how to exist in the same world she once judged so harshly. Then there’s Emily Charlton, whose long-awaited emotional demise was both painful and weirdly satisfying to watch. Emily always represented the brutal reality of ambition: survive at all costs until the cost eventually arrives with interest. The film finally shows the cracks beneath the designer sunglasses and passive-aggressive one-liners.
More Than Fashion and Nostalgia
Every girl needs a Nigel Kipling in their corner. Loyal, honest, effortlessly fabulous, and somehow still capable of seeing the humanity in people swallowed whole by ambition. Nigel remains the emotional backbone of the franchise and proves that kindness and style are not mutually exclusive.
Beneath the designer heels and dramatic coats, TDWP2 digs into something much deeper: the powerful hands controlling media, trends, and the things we consume daily. It also tackles the transition from physical media to digital media, showing how quickly industries evolve and how brutally they discard the people who once ruled them. A haunting undertone follows the film, like watching someone realise the empire they built no longer speaks the language of the modern world.
Source: 20th Century Studios
Was it perfect? No. I’d personally give it a 7/10. But it gave the fashion girlies stunning pieces, gave critics plenty to debate, and reminded audiences that nostalgia is a dangerous thing. Twenty years is a long time to expect someone to remain the girl you once knew. Miranda changed because the world demanded it. And maybe that’s the real tragedy of the film: no matter how much things evolve, some parts of the system never really do.
The Voice Behind the Review: Khethiwe Marcia Thusi
Khethiwe Marcia Thusi the artistry of escapism
“I live somewhere between cinema screens and imagination. Drawn to stories that linger like unfinished songs, I explore film and art with emotion, wit, and fearless honesty. I’m fascinated by quiet symbolism hidden beneath dialogue, colour, music, and silence, the little details that reveal who people truly are when the world around them begins to crack.
As a former addictions counsellor, my passion has always been rooted in people: understanding emotion and behaviour. That perspective naturally shaped the way I experience storytelling. To me, movies and music are more than entertainment; they are mirrors, memories, beautiful disasters, and sometimes therapy with better lighting.
I believe we all need worlds outside of our own to remain sane places to escape, feel, grieve, dream, laugh, and survive for a little while longer. Cinema and music do that beautifully. They allow us to sit inside someone else’s chaos for two hours and somehow leave understanding our own a little better.
It’s never about the art, it’s about the person who became of that art (yes, this is an original quote by me).”
