Who Is the Real Villain of The Devil Wears Prada 2?

Spoilers ahead for the plot and ending of The Devil Wears Prada 2.

There was a time when the fastest way to get a group of millennials arguing was to ask them who the real villain of The Devil Wears Prada is. It might seem like a silly question on its face — there’s no real debate over who the title refers to. That would be Meryl Streep’s fearsome editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly, a character so unambiguously inspired by Vogue’s Anna Wintour that we’ve long stopped pretending there’s any real distance between them. But the nuance of David Frankel’s 2006 film, adapted by Aline Brosh McKenna from Lauren Weisberger’s roman à clef, made the question an incessant topic of social-media discussion, to the point where the claim that the true villains Andy (Anne Hathaway) faces are her unsupportive friends and boyfriend, Nate (Adrian Grenier), has achieved meme status.

In other words, we don’t need to relitigate this particular take — though have at it in the comments if that’s what makes you happy. But with a sequel to dissect and an audience primed for this kind of analysis, the larger conversation around villainy is worth reviving. The Devil Wears Prada 2 reunites Andy and Miranda, with the former hired as Runway’s new features editor after a PR disaster. It’s a film that seems well aware of the last two decades of discourse, often leaning into the question of who counts as its central antagonist, if only by asking whether anyone can be so neatly categorized. So who is the real villain of The Devil Wears Prada 2? There are several notable contenders, none of whom should feel offended by finding their way onto this list. As Miranda’s new husband, Stuart (Kenneth Branagh), reminds her, “Villains are always the most interesting.”

Miranda Priestly

Occam’s razor tells us that the most obvious choice is usually the correct one. While Miranda has been lightly cowed by a work environment less tolerant of exploitation — in one of the film’s funniest moments, she hangs up her coat herself, exhausted by the effort — she’s still quite nasty. Even as she struggles to use the correct language (body negative is her best guess at the term for models who aren’t waifish), Miranda shows little patience for Andy, whom she initially claims not to remember at all. She starts off the movie openly rooting for her former assistant’s failure. Still, this is a somewhat softer version of the character, one who saves her sharpest barbs for those who deserve it, like when she tells a backstabbing Emily (Emily Blunt), “You’re not a visionary, you’re a vendor.” She ultimately supports Andy and gives Nigel (Stanley Tucci) a long overdue moment to shine. Who knew she was capable of words of affirmation? Miranda remains the devil in The Devil Wears Prada 2, but she’s not the villain.

Emily Charlton

Though Emily was certainly Andy’s rival in the first movie, they emerged as something close to frenemies by the end. In the sequel, they’re no longer both vying for Miranda’s approval, with Emily now a senior executive at Dior. Andy recruits her as an ally, getting Emily to convince her billionaire boyfriend, Benji (Justin Theroux), to buy Runway and prevent mass layoffs. It looks, for a moment, like Emily will be a hero. Soon enough, however, her true motivation reveals itself: She will be taking Miranda’s place at the top of the masthead. Emily pulling one over on Andy to betray Miranda is pretty villainous, her ego underlined by her decision to put herself on the cover. But in Emily’s final scene, she’s granted forgiveness to go with her new blonde dye job. When she meets with Andy after the acquisition deal falls apart, Emily acknowledges her missteps. “Everyone screws up,” Andy tells her, and the two move forward as friends by sharing carbs. If Andy doesn’t think of Emily as the villain, we probably shouldn’t either.

Andy Sachs

The galaxy-brain Devil Wears Prada take has long been that Andy is the real villain, complicit in the same system she rails against. It’s a reach for reasons that go beyond Hathaway’s charm, but we must at least explore the possibility — particularly in The Devil Wears Prada 2, which has Andy returning to Runway despite being all too conscious of the evils therein. She’s clearly changed quite a bit since the first movie, now more firmly committed to doing work that matters and keeping journalism alive in an industry that seems to be circling the drain. That doesn’t mean she’s a total innocent, though. Andy makes her share of moral concessions, including returning to Runway in the first place (and getting the previous editor fired in the process). She also pitches a tell-all about Miranda, though it’s unclear whether she’d actually go through with it without Miranda’s blessing. Still, these are relatively minor crimes, evidence only that Andy is complex and believably flawed. It’s true, as Miranda points out, that her campaign to save Miranda is as much about saving herself, but it’s self-preservation in the name of also saving dozens of jobs and (in a tiny way) journalism. Andy is not remotely a villain, just a person. Like she tells love interest Peter (Patrick Brammall), “We’re not perfect, and maybe we should just be not perfect together.”

Peter

Speaking of Peter, by virtue of being Andy’s paramour, he has to be considered as the villain of The Devil Wears Prada 2. Thankfully, he appears to be much more supportive than Nate — he actually reads Andy’s articles, something she says her exes haven’t always bothered doing — and he never asks her to choose him over her career in any capacity. In the “villain” column, there’s his job: He’s a contractor who helped renovate the building Andy ends up moving into. Andy calls these renovations “everything that’s wrong in our society,” and while Peter isn’t as guilty as the developer, he’s still part of a process that’s clearly a sore spot for her. When Runway falls into the hands of Jay Ravitz (B.J. Novak), who is intent on a massive cost-cutting restructure, Andy snaps at Peter, “We can’t just keep sucking the soul out of everything and then gutting it and repackaging it.” She’s really just lashing out at a nearby target, though. Peter seems like a truly decent guy — and they were going to tear down that building anyway! Sorry, Nate, you’re still the only one of Andy’s boyfriends who can reasonably lay claim to the villain title.

Andy’s friends

Folks on social media love to lambast Andy’s friends from the first Devil Wears Prada, whose biggest crimes, as far as I can tell, are stealing her phone when Miranda calls and generally being judgy about her commitment to fashion/letting Miranda treat her like garbage. Tracie Thoms’s Lily is the only one to return for the sequel, joined by Mack (Larry Mitchell), a laid-off former co-worker Andy hires to write for Runway, and Tessa (Rachel Bloom), a book editor urging Andy to write the Miranda exposé. Perhaps responding to feedback about the last movie, McKenna has turned Lily into an exceptionally supportive friend, both in terms of Andy’s career and her love life. Mack, meanwhile, is just a writer who wants to keep getting paid to do journalism — I feel you, brother — and Tessa is pushy with good reason. A friend who can help you secure a $350,000 book deal is a friend for life. No villains here.

Jay Ravitz

Now we’re talking. The progeny of longtime Runway chairman Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman), who drops dead at his own birthday party, Jay is the kind of unqualified failson CEO we see far too much of these days. As soon as he introduces Miranda to a group of consultants (“undertakers,” Andy calls them) and spouts meaningless buzzwords, it’s clear he plans to wreak havoc on the magazine in the name of profit and productivity. His plans include making significant cuts to every department, dismissing the seasoned Runway employees deemed too expensive, and (horror of all horrors) forcing Miranda to fly economy. Anyone who has worked in or observed the media industry for the last couple of decades will recognize and be repulsed by nepo-baby Jay, who is undeniably villainous. But if we’re talking about the villain, he has some competition in the form of …

Benji Barnes

If Jay Ravitz is a riff on guys like David Ellison, Benji represents the evil tech-bro side of things. He’s not Elon Musk, exactly, but he’s someone who has used his wealth to transform himself into less of a nerd in appearance, even as his cringe-inducing social awkwardness proves harder to shake. He also wants to send a rocket to the sun and call it the Icarus, which tells you everything you need to know about his actual brain power and self-awareness. Ultimately, Benji is a tool for Emily to get what she wants — Miranda’s job — but his imagining of a future where Runway is all AI shows that he’s awful enough in his own right. He represents the kind of figure who has become far too powerful in our society, a person who sees the real people who make the magazine great as nothing more than an impediment to technological advancement. If that’s not a villain, I don’t know what is.

The real villain

We’ve narrowed it down to two top contenders. So, is Jay the villain of The Devil Wears Prada 2? Or is it Benji? The answer, it turns out, is both — and also neither. It’s not so much that they aren’t villains, but that the grim ideas they represent run much deeper than any single person. The villain of the film is an ideology that Benji articulates to Miranda when he’s poised to take control of Runway. “The future just comes rushing at us,” he tells her. “Our job is just to let it take what it wants to take.” The villain is corporate greed. It’s AI. It’s the devaluation of journalism and the elevation of “content.” It’s — dare I say it? — late-stage capitalism. This might sound like a cop-out, but it reflects The Devil Wears Prada 2’s surprisingly clear-eyed perspective on the world we live in now. These problems are so much more than any one mustache-twirling villain could ever hope to be.

And there are no real heroes either. When Lucy Liu’s benevolent billionaire Sasha Barnes (Benji’s ex) swoops in and saves Runway, it’s clear Miranda knows that won’t be the end of their troubles. Sasha has promised to be hands off, but Miranda tellingly adds “for now.” Even more than the first movie, which also complicated its depiction of the monstrous editor at its center, The Devil Wears Prada 2 acknowledges its characters’ fundamental complexity. While looking at The Last Supper, Miranda reminds Andy that we inevitably disappoint one another. “We are human,” she says. “No one is perfect.” That’s not to let anyone off the hook — particularly not vultures like Benji and Jay — but to accept that most of these people are doing what they think is best in a system built to destroy them. In their own ways, Miranda, Andy, and Emily are each members of a dying breed. The least they can do in times like these is grant each other a little grace.