May
Yesterday Alla Davies went to the cinema with her husband, giant popcorn in hand, to watch The Devil Wears Prada 2. What started as a perfectly normal morning quickly turned into something much deeper.
Forty minutes in she realised she wasn’t just watching a film — she was watching the quiet, expensive, perfectly tailored emptiness of modern life. The gorgeous fabrics, the perfect lighting, the brand recognition… but inside? Dead air.
That boredom became the doorway.
Because suddenly the real subject wasn’t Prada or fashion or even the sequel. It was the constant, invisible editing we all do to ourselves just to stay in the room. The tiny internal voice that says: soften this, remove the edge, don’t be too sharp, don’t be too honest, make sure the room can digest you without discomfort.
Alla explores how we turn ourselves into socially acceptable, manageable versions of who we actually are — in conversations, in relationships, in jobs, in public — until one day everything feels as flat and lifeless as the first forty minutes of that film.
Until Miranda (and Alla) finally asks the only question that matters: At what point do you stop editing yourself to fit everyone else’s constantly changing rules?
Sharp, personal, and unflinching — this is the sixth episode of Alla Davies’ podcast. Popcorn not required, but highly recommended.
Yesterday morning my husband and I went to see The Devil Wears Prada 2. And of course I got the huge popcorn. Because without popcorn, cinema is not cinema. It becomes some kind of moral exercise. You can be on the strictest diet in the world, but if you walk into a movie theatre and don’t get popcorn, the ritual is broken. The magic doesn’t count.
So there I am, sitting with this massive bucket of popcorn, happy for about three minutes.
Then the film starts.
About ten minutes in, I can already feel something is off. By twenty, I know it is boring. By forty, I am half asleep, thinking, what am I actually doing in this cinema?
That became my real question. Not whether it was good or bad. Not whether it worked as a sequel. Just: why is this on a big screen?
Because if this had dropped straight onto Netflix, most people would have turned it off by minute twenty. Twenty-five, if they were feeling generous. At home you are free. You can say no, sorry, not today, and go make tea.
But here, you’ve already committed. You bought the ticket. You bought the popcorn. The morning is gone. You’re in the seat. And once you’re in a cinema, leaving starts to feel dramatic. So you stay. You chew. You wait. You suffer with dignity.
That was the first forty minutes.
Not really a film. More like a luxury-sponsored boredom retreat. You sit there chewing popcorn and reflecting on your own life because the film itself is not giving you much. Everything looks expensive. The fabrics are gorgeous. The grey tailoring is perfect. The lighting is right. Everything seems like it should be working.
But inside, it is dead air.
And of course the whole time you are comparing it to 2006. You can’t help it. The original is running in the back of your mind whether you want it to or not. And the first one had bite. It had poison. It had pleasure. Miranda walked into a room and the room reorganised itself around her.
Here, I was looking at Meryl Streep thinking, God, she looks irritated. Not terrifying. Not icy. Not brilliant. Just irritated. Like she herself is bored. Like she is not enjoying this at all.
And when the person at the centre of the thing isn’t enjoying it, why should I be doing unpaid emotional labour for both of us?
That’s when the thought started.
Because suddenly it stopped being about Prada or fashion or beautiful coats. It started looking like something else. A person trying to edit herself to fit a new social script.
Don’t say this.
Don’t call that what it is.
Don’t be too sharp.
Don’t be too direct.
Don’t be too cold.
Don’t be too honest.
And after a while, you stop being a person. You become a social machine.
That’s what got me.
Not the plot. Not the clothes. That feeling of endless internal editing. When you are no longer just speaking, reacting, thinking — you are screening yourself. Can I say this? Is this safe? Will the room handle it? Is this too much? Is this socially acceptable enough?
And the worst part is that nobody even needs to cancel you anymore. If you’re smart, you’ll do the cutting yourself. You soften the sentence. Change the word. Adjust the tone. Take out the edge. File yourself down into something the room can digest without discomfort.
That, to me, is the real devil in this Prada world.
Not the clothes. Not the magazine. Not the heels.
The edit.
That tiny internal Miranda living in your head whispering: take that out, make this softer, not now, too much, the room won’t like it.
And that’s why those first forty minutes irritated me so much. I wasn’t just watching a dull film. I was watching a very expensive, very well-dressed emptiness. Form without nerve. A beautiful shell surviving on brand recognition, luxury fabric, and the authority of the big screen.
And if I’m honest, we tolerate far too much when it’s well-packaged.
Films.
Jobs.
Relationships.
People.
Smart conversations.
Any boring piece of emptiness, as long as it arrives wearing the right face and a decent coat.
That’s the joke.
We sit through dead things if they look expensive enough.
Then somewhere after the forty-minute mark, the film finally moves. You can feel it. Suddenly there’s blood in it. The script remembers it has legs. People wake up. And that’s when I wake up too. Because finally it starts getting to the real subject.
Not fashion.
The price of social acceptability.
How much of yourself has to be flattened to stay in the room.
How much has to be cut out to get through the door.
How much has to go missing before everybody relaxes around you.
And in those last couple of minutes — the part that probably makes the whole thing worth watching — Miranda finally does the only truly alive thing in the entire film. She more or less says: keep your new moral bookkeeping. I tried to pass through your updated filter. I tried to be acceptable. I tried to adjust to your constantly moving rules. And what did I become? Some careful, manageable version of a person. So what exactly was the point?
And there it is.
Because it isn’t just about her. It’s about everyone. About how much of yourself you are willing to cut away just to stay in the room. Just to avoid tension. Just to avoid becoming too much. Just to pass.
And then one day you find yourself perfectly socially acceptable, perfectly manageable, perfectly digestible — and wondering why everything inside feels as dead as those first forty minutes.
Because the nerve got edited out.
That, honestly, was the real point of the film for me. Not nostalgia. Not the tailoring. Not the brand. Just one question:
At what point do you say, enough, I am not going to keep editing myself to fit your constantly changing social nonsense? I would rather stay difficult, sharp, inconvenient, whatever, than turn into one more well-behaved emptiness.
That’s why the ending worked.
As for the first forty minutes — maybe they were just meant to be chewed through with the popcorn.
A spiritual exercise.