Give ‘The Devil’ her due

Can you make a movie about a superficial world that isn’t terminally shallow? We’ll see, when the adaptation of “The Devil Wears Prada,” the 2003 bestseller by first-time novelist Lauren Weisberger, comes to the screen Friday.

The story, as thin as a Vogue assistant market editor, provides most elements of the chick-lit canon: nice girl from the boonies comes to the big city to find fortune and love, rubs shoulders with some sophisticated people who are not very nice, learns important life lessons and stays true to her good self.

The film, like the book, is set in the glamorous world of high fashion. Our young heroine Andrea, played with appropriate spunk by Anne Hathaway, lands a gig at a magazine much like Vogue, as the assistant to its imperious editor, Miranda Priestly (known behind her back as the Dragon Lady.) But don’t assume this is a docudrama, just because Weisberger was a flunky at Vogue, toiling in the service of editor Anna Wintour (known behind her back as Nuclear Wintour).

The legions of fans who swear they’d show up to listen to Meryl Streep read the small-print fashion credits in Vogue’s back pages won’t want to miss her turn as Priestly, an ice queen who never lets a “please” or “thank you” escape from her lips. Shot in New York and Paris, with costumes by Patricia Field (“Sex and the City”), “The Devil Wears Prada” could shape up to be the summer’s girlie guilty pleasure.

-- Mimi Avins