The cinema is more interested in the stories of private detectives than in the intrigues of business leaders. So if the boss is also a boss, the field is reduced even more. In this summer series, we have selected four films, French and American, from 1933 to 2017, in which the heroine is a leader. Tough or sensitive, in the world of industry or fashion, respected or hated, virtuous or scandalous, they all say something about the society in which they evolve and the way they are perceived. For L’Express, today’s great bosses have taken a look at their fictional counterparts.
EPISODE 1 – “The Banker”: Romy Schneider, an Amazon of finance
EPISODE 2 – “Number one”: Emmanuelle Devos seen by a leader of Vinci
How clumsy and frumpy she looks, Anne Hathaway, next to the impeccable Meryl Streep, leading her world in the perfectly cut outfits that suit her intractable character so well. The devil wears Prada, popular comedy released in theaters in 2006, depicts the sadistic relationship on stilettos between the director of the New York fashion magazine runway, Miranda Priestly, and Andy, an aspiring journalist looking for a first job, hired as an assistant despite her total ignorance of the milieu. We quickly linked the character of Miranda to the enigmatic high priestess of the glamorous press Anna Wintour, now in her seventies, at the helm of the vogue American for more than three decades. Especially since the film is the adaptation of a best-seller written in 2003 by Lauren Weisberger, former assistant to the editor-in-chief with the strict square hairstyle. However, “She’s adorable!” Says Valérie Messika, founder of the fine jewelry brand that bears her name. An international network of 70 stores, more than 500 retailers… Its jewels shine all over the world, even in Australia where a new boutique will soon open. “Anna Wintour attended my first fashion show, in the Ritz gardens, in September 2021. She was staying at the hotel then and, informed by Kate Moss, she came to see us, she recalls. I think she has forged this armor of a cold, hard, intransigent woman, but I am not sure that she is so in the intimacy.
Valérie Messika, founder of the fine jewelry brand that bears her name.
/ © François Durand / GETTY IMAGES EUROPE / GETTY IMAGES / AFP
He is also a fan of Meryl Streep in this role. Even if this Miranda is ready to do anything, even betrayal, to keep her job. It is all the more chilling as the American actress interprets it with her softest voice. Its placidity contrasts with the frenzy it provokes. Never a word higher than the other to establish his authority, just a few stares, well-felt remarks, a coat thrown negligently, each morning, on the desk of his whipping boy. And extravagant whims, such as demanding plane tickets to return illico from Miami to New York when a hurricane nails the aircraft to the ground, or unearthing for his daughters, in a few hours, the last Harry Potter… volume of the saga which, at the time, had not yet been published. Suffice to say that his young assistant can make a cross on his private life.
Valérie Messika is clearly an anti-Miranda and claims to “work emotionally, with empathy”, to the point of sharing the joys and sorrows of her collaborators in their intimate lives: 70% of her 350 employees are women. But the jeweler and the fictional editor-in-chief have in common the idea that a look can promote self-affirmation. The film is also more subtle than it seems. It is also for her flair and her indisputable professional qualities that this fictionalized Anna Wintour is respected. “His opinion is the only one that counts”, asserts its artistic director.
The devil wears Prada mocks the luxury sector, but does not denigrate it. In a key scene, Miranda puts Andy in his place by emphasizing the major influence in our lives of haute couture, which creates jobs, dictates the trend and imposes, for example, this cerulean blue, shade of a lambda sweater that this that day the skeptical employee, not yet gone through the makeover box. Would the despot Miranda be judged so harshly if she were a man? “It just looks like she’s doing her job,” defends Andy herself, although she ultimately decides to resign so as not to follow the path of her superior. Valérie Messika, too, pleads her cause: “Miranda has humanity, she knows how to recognize Andy’s value and supports his candidacy for a journalist position.” And, as surprising as it may seem, from this traumatic experience the tyrannized assistant emerges galvanized.
The devil wears Prada (2006), by David Frankel. Starring Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci…