~Meryl Streep gives an Oscar worthy performance ~. Review on The Devil Wears Prada Movie

Dir: David Frankel

Cast: Annne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci.

Here is an unexpected delight, which deserves to be a hit on the scale of Pretty Woman or Working Girl. I don't know any woman or teenage girl who wouldn't adore it; and most men will enjoy it, too. It's the kind of bright, witty, classy romp that George Cukor or Ernst Lubitsch made in the golden age of Hollywood, though it's theme, style and setting is very up-to-the-minute.

The title may suggest a b**chy satire on the world of fashion - which, in part, it is; but it also shows a finer appreciation of fashion - it's importance and influence - than any film since Fred Astire romanced Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face.

For those of you who have read the book on which it is based, a splendidly malicious, spill-the-beans bestseller by Lauren Weisberger, who worked as the assistant of Anna 'Nuclear' Wintour, the famously fearsome editor of American Vogue, the news is good. The film's much better. Aline Brosh McKenna's script deepens it without softening it, and offers four terrific roles to the leading actors.

Meryl Streep will face formidable opposition at next year's Academy Awards from Helen Mirren in The Queen, but it would be a huge injustice if Streep did not win at least another Oscar nomination as the softly spoken, gimlet-eyed editor from Ladies' Hades, Miranda Priestly.

Not only does she have the best entrance of any leading lady of the past ten years, from beginning to end she gives a masterclass in restrained comedy acting - the polar opposite of Jim Carrey, Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler. Not a vocal inflexion, gesture or flicker of the eye is wasted. She endows the beastly Priestly with astonishing depth, and even a little pathos, but never the slightest sentimentality.

She embodies all the worst attributes of a highly successful career-woman. She is an over-demanding diva, career-driven to the point of insanity, a pathological snob, a fashion fascist, and - as our heroine puts it - not happy unless the people around her are panicked, nauseous or suicidal. I can think of several males who are at least as horrifying and possibly even more lacking in charm, but this is an unforgettably female version of the Devil incarnate.

Streep turns Priestly into a classic movie monster, even nastier than Michael Douglas's Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, when she ends each string of impossib;e demands with an airy, sing-song 'That's all'.

It would be equally unjust if Emily Blunt's supporting performance as Miranda Priestly's snooty number one assistant didn't win awards.

This is a richly funny but also subtly tragic performance, as the character aspires to become a new Miranda but doesn't have the required talent or panache. Blunt gets a laugh with nearly every line and reaction.

The veteran supporting actor Stanley Tucci, who is rarely less than excellent, is on top form in the potentially stereotyped role of the editor's gay right-hand man. He starts as the bitchiest snob on Runway. Spotting Andy for the first time in her shapeless sweater, plaid skirt and sensible shoes, he muses aloud: 'Are we doing a before and after piece I don't know about?' But he becomes Andy's only confidant, and you start to see him as he is: a shrewd professional who has had to learn how to take some amazingly hard knocks, not least from his boss.

Last but certainly not least, Anne Hathaway is a joy to watch as Andy, the innocent young university graduate thrown into the jungle of magazine journalism. This is a difficult role, being almost too good to be true, and I've seen Hathaway being criticised for being "vanilla". But I think she makes Andy delightful and believable, with just enough edge and ambition to convince as she climbs with difficulty, and some rekuctance, up fashion's greasy pole. She's vanilla, perhaps, but with a dash of ginger.

The film lasts 110 minutes but doesn't drag. Thats a tribute to David Frankel, who has directed Sex And The City and Entourage on television, and before that made an underrated little movie starring Sarah Jessica Parker called Miami Rhapsody.

The movie knows where its heart lies, and follows its instinct throughout with rigour. Along with Little Miss Sunshine, this is one of the two outstanding comedies of 2006.