The Wintour Issue

Just got back from a lovely Sunday morning date with an old friend and thought I would put down a few words about the film before it went out of my head. This morning's fare was the long anticipated "Anna Wintour movie": The September Issue (btw: movies before noon at AMC are $6 in case anyone's super cheap). As many of you know, Anna Wintour is the celebrated and famously icey editor-in-chief of American Vogue. Her demeanour is so famous in fact that a former personal assistant wrote the bestselling novel The Devil Wears Prada about it (later turned into the popular film starring Meryl Streep in the role in question).

Ultimately this film seems to take a softer view on Anna's personality (which is to be expected considering how much influence she has amassed in the fashion and entertainment worlds). It does not, however, shy away from her emotional disconnect as one would think, rather addressing it directly to her and those who work with her. While everyone freely admits to her distance, the underlying implication is that this is how she remains efficient. In a world where many of the creative types normally tapped to produce work for her magazine are flighty and unfocused, Anna Wintour remains the engine driving the train towards greatness. Her ability to strike fear into those around her means that she does not have to say much in order to get what she wants, and get it quickly.

The surprise in this case is actually the appearance of Wintour's long time Creative Director, Grace Coddington (a former model and brilliant stylist in her own right). Grace is brilliant and driven, opinionated and intent on getting what she wants and a good portion of the film features the complicated relationship between the women. In the end, it is this relationship and the conflict that defines it which manages to keep the film moving forward as everyone at Vogue struggles to put together the largest September Issue in Vogue's history.

I had some concerns going in that it was going to be two hours of Anna Wintour being mean to people and it is certainly not that. The filmmakers jump effortlessly from place to place and work chronologically with the magazine employees to follow the story as it develops; which in this case is probably the best way they could have structured the film. The numbers involved in the production of this magazine are astounding (at one point Grace mentions that Anna has, in fact, cut about $50,000 worth of work from the issue in taking out a few outfits from one of the early shoots).

Alternately funny and intriguing, the film reads a little like a television special but keeps the audience interested.