Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsGreat performances, especially by Meryl Streep
Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2018
There are a lot of good parts to this fluffy comedy (performances by Streep, Blunt and Hathaway are faultless). But it gets sort of muddled what message Hathaway's character is supposed to be sending/receiving. First, she's a giant baby going into a job interview with no idea about the company, and an even more giant baby to whine incessantly about the demands of the job once she (against all probability) gets it. Yes, Meryl Streep plays a demanding and often mean boss. So what? As Hathaway's character herself argues, if a man did the same things, people wouldn't care because he was brilliant at his job. But in spite of that epiphany, Hathaway caves in to the FAR MORE IMPORTANT whims of her ridiculous boyfriend and leaves her job so she will have more free time to celebrate his birthdays, or something. She learns the all important lesson that not caring about fashion or your job is more noble, gives away all her nice clothes, and throws away her cell phone. (How does an unemployed journalism major afford a decent apartment in NYC, and also have the luxury of such expensive whims? Unexplained). Anyway, if you can ignore that absurd messaging and just want to watch Streep be amazing, go for it.
