文化面面观

The Devil Wears Prada: 电影与畅销书的结合

The Devil Wears Prada is a comedy-drama film, the screen adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's 2003 novel of the same name. It stars Anne Hathaway as Andrea Sachs, a recent university graduate who gets a job as a co-assistant to powerful fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep. The film co-stars Emily Blunt as Priestly's first-assistant, Adrian Grenier as Sachs' boyfriend, and Stanley Tucci as a male co-worker of Priestly's. Tracie Thoms plays Lily, a close friend of Sachs' and Simon Baker has the role of a writer who assists her with some difficult tasks assigned by Priestly.

Hoping to work her way to the The New Yorker or Vanity Fair, Andrea "Andy" Sachs, fresh out of college, lands a plum magazine job: personal assistant to Miranda, who dominates the fashion world from her perch atop Runway magazine. She puts up with the eccentric and humiliating requests of her boss because, she is told, if she lasts a year in the position she will get her pick of other jobs, perhaps even the journalistic position she truly craves.

Gradually, though, Andrea adjusts to the position and its many perks, including free designer clothing and other choice accessories. She also comes to prize chance encounters with hot young writer Christian (Baker), who earns her eternal gratitude when he helps her with one of her more impossible assignments. However, her family and, especially, friends are feeling neglected. Ultimately Andrea realizes she must make a choice between them and her job lest she become more like the woman she despises working for.

Differences between film and novel

1. In the movie, Andrea is a graduate of Northwestern instead of Brown, and is from Ohio instead of Connecticut. Her career aspirations have been changed from literature to journalism, and she is a brunette rather than a blonde.

2. Lily's role is the most significant change between the novel and the film. In the former, she is a graduate student in Russian literature at Columbia rather than working at an art gallery as she does in the film. Her role in the novel is much larger, and the narrative goes into lengthy detail about her past with Andrea, depicting her as more free-spirited in contrast to her. In both the film and the novel she comes to enjoy the free designer gifts Andrea's job provides. Lily encourages Andrea to pursue Christian in the novel, while in the film she is angry when she sees the two close together. She's also Andrea's roommate instead of Nate and, over the course of the novel, starts to pick up men in bars and develops a drinking problem as a result of stress from her studies. A car accident she suffers while Andrea is in Paris triggers the climax of the novel.

3. Nate is named Alex in the novel and is teaching fourth graders in the South Bronx through Teach for America rather than being a chef as in the movie. He and Andrea do not live together as they do in the film, and have broken up at the end, although they remain friends.

4. Emily is seen much more often in the novel, and is more cynical in her attitude toward Miranda, sometimes not doing things she has told Miranda she has done. Overall, she is a more sympathetic character in the novel. In the film, it is Emily, not Lily, who is injured in a traffic accident.

5. In both the novel and the film, Andrea is required to deliver the Book and Miranda's dry cleaning to her home. In the novel, Andrea walks in while Miranda, "B-DAD", Cassidy and Caroline are having dinner and starts to talk without cue, obviously humiliating herself. In the film, this scene is simplified by having her listen to the daughters tricking her into heading upstairs where she walks in on Miranda and her husband arguing.

6. Generally, Miranda is extensively much more cold, abusive, and distant to Andy in the novel. The film offered the two a much more colorful connection and sense of understanding.

7. The Doug character does not exist in the novel.

8. Christian's last name is Collinsworth in the novel. He and Andrea do not sleep together as they do in the film. However, by the end of the book, he and Andrea still maintain their flirtatious friendship.

9. Miranda's explanation of how Andrea's cable knit sweater was ultimately influenced by the couture in the magazine's pages, and Nigel's lecture about how important Runway truly is and what it represents to so many people, are not in the novel and were written for the film.

10. Andrea's effort to get the new Harry Potter books (not copies of the unpublished manuscript) is less successful in the novel. While she is aware that the twins want separate copies, only one is actually delivered (to Paris, not the train) and Miranda again berates Andrea over it. Also, in the novel she is asked to get the fourth book in the series, not the seventh, as is shown in the film. (A closeup of the manuscript the twins read says "Harry Potter: Book Seven".)

11. In the novel, the twins attend the Horace Mann School in The Bronx, New York, while in the movie, they attend The Dalton School in New York, New York.

12. There is less confusion in the novel on Andrea's part over where to put the Book and the dry cleaning at Miranda's home (in the novel, a Fifth Avenue penthouse rather than a townhouse as it is in the film).

13. Irv Ravitz, played by Tibor Feldman and seen in several scenes throughout the movie, is only referred to in the novel.

14. In the novel Nigel is very tall, British, black and enough of a celebrity that even Andrea recognizes him; whereas the film's Nigel (Stanley Tucci) is white, of normal height and from Rhode Island. Also, he is not so nice in the book and in fact most of his niceness is arranged by Emily in the book.

15. He, and the other male Runway staffers in the novel, are also openly, even flamboyantly, gay. But while his character in the film could be gay, there are no references to it in the script, the other men were cut from the story and this aspect of the novel is largely absent from the film.

16. Nigel is never offered a new job in the novel, and Christian is never offered a job at Runway.

17. Both Andrea and Miranda are described in the book as coming from Jewish families (Miranda had even changed her name to something less Jewish). In the film, no reference is made to either character's religious or ethnic background.

18. Emily is English. The novel made no reference to her nationality.

19. Conversely, Miranda is English in the novel, but Streep plays her as an American.

20. In the novel, Emily cannot go to Paris due to a bout with mononucleosis. In the film, Miranda decides Andrea is more capable when Andrea remembers who an oncoming guest is at a museum benefit after the cold-stricken Emily fails. She puts Andrea up to telling Emily she's going with her instead, and the film implies Emily is also fired. However, before Andrea can tell Emily this, she gets hit by the car.

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