First Hit: Ended up feeling sad about Anna Wintour. If I felt the way she appeared to feel during this film I would have quit my job a long time ago.
Anna Wintour is supposedly the Grand Dame or Grand Poobah of fashion.
As shown in this film, she's created an intimidating circus life around her which has little bearing on happiness, just a state of being miserable, arrogant and pushy.
The film is about her and about how the largest issue of Vogue (September of 2007 at 5 lbs and 840 pages) made it to the market, as if the number of pages is what is important.
The film begins with Anna making a statement that people who look down at fashion are simply afraid. To me that sounded like someone pumping up their own bubble of illusion because they were fearful that others would see meaninglessness in her world of fashion.
I personally don’t give a rat’s ass about fashion, and to think that my not caring about fashion makes me afraid is simply absurd. I understand that fashion is important for some people but for others it holds no interest and to state that the latter people are afraid is simply a stupid statement. It doesn’t cross her mind that some people fashion has no interest and never will. Early on in the film she indicates that jeans purchased for hundreds of dollars are that much better, from a style and importance standpoint, than jeans purchased from Kmart.
I wondered if it was about the expensiveness of high fashion is what she thinks makes it important. Watch her reaction when she states her siblings think what she does is "a bit silly". The film moves along to watch the infighting between Anna and Grace her creative director.
Grace, a former model and is earthier in her life and outlook than Anna, creates some very interesting and visionary pictures and themes for Vogue which were fun to watch develop.
When her pictures are on the screen you know you are looking at creative talent. That her pictures take over the September issue is not coincidence.
Directed by R.J. Cutler this look into the fashion world was surprisingly telling. Many of the people seem unhappy in the film and when the publisher announced to the staff that this particular Vogue would be the largest yet, the applause and response is muted and uninspired. Anna appears awash in her job and it seems as if there is little joy in her life. Her posture, look, and eyes belie any words she states about liking her life. I just don’t buy it, nor do I buy clothes because they are in fashion.
Overall: This film is well shot, but the subject and subject matter expert (Anna) is uninspired and comes off as just a job and it is the only thing she knows.