Sometimes devilishly ruthless is what works.

From a posh sofa in Manhattan real estate, a caring Art Gallery owner, Lily (Tracie Thoms), calls her hustling journalist friend. Andrea Sachs (Anne Hathaway) or Andy writes for fashion magazine Runway. Fueled on stylish ambition, she and her high couture crew have been traveling from New York to Milan for the year’s lights and pomps and circumstances clothing extravaganza. Andy picks up the phone in Italy.

“Call Stockholm and ask for her syndrome back. Are you kidding me, Andy?”

Lily cannot fathom why Andy now has empathy for a former boss, currently new again, known for hurling her heavy floor-length coat for an underling to catch and put away—until human resources reminds Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), Editor-in-Chief at Runway and the deviless herself, that modern employee protocols are not this—like they were in Andy’s day as Priestly’s assistant.

Priestly has been editor for decades and Andy is returning many career-years later to resuscitate Runway. Shocking surprise is how Priestly vulnerably needs Andy to write copy that exudes integrity, a notion often misplaced in feverish fashion making shuffles. Andy never asks what being authentic costs for she goes there at all costs. Priestly is learning from her how.

Stockholm can keep her syndrome because Andy is never held hostage to any dynamic other than claiming her role in a lineage of powerful women. And explains why Andy sees Priestly as inspiring when others see demanding, dominating, excruciating, insulting, and divaing. In a modern world of corporate buy and sell everything, the movie Devil Who Wears Prada 2 deeply portrays how women’s cut-throat competition appears on the surface and real consequences that follow this behavior.

Yet behind the scenes of ruthless veneer is a reality-check that needing each other’s support, friendship, and validation remains the one truly vulnerable goal. These women bring an inherent female-prone characteristic for people-pleasing to endless stitches on a dress hemline. Fashion runway stresses be damned for whatever a woman can achieve to please her female boss will be done, dammit. Andy has her sewing needle—a writer’s keyboard—always at her ready to reestablish her power before a next Priestly word laser.

Priestly’s poison word daggers are unkind yet brilliant for what she says is often accurate—on swift laser-like vision. In her impulsivity though she often cannot envision, or see right before her, how her colleagues are growing professionally over the years. She tells one of her assistants from years ago, Emily (Emily Blunt), who is now boss at Dior, that “You’re not a visionary. You are a vendor.” The fingernail scratchy comment is a way to fight back for Emily designing behind Miranda’s back a business deal for Emily to take over Runway. Yet Emily had said earlier that fashion has lost much creative dynamite and is evolving as simply retail.

Andy’s people-pleasing changes as she sees herself standing for what she believes in, a dramatic process over the years. For one, she perceives Emily as a truer friend. And Miranda she finds inspiring to work alongside because each woman believes in fantastic hustle for a day’s miraculous work. Their leadership appears however the role demands: writing, fashioning, mentoring, voicing, businessing and on and on. The movie sprints on hustle, showing what continuously being in a time pocket called how to get the next impossible done done looks like.

The intensive matriarchal power infusion does not exclude male workers. Nigel (Stanley Tucci) is a fashion creative who has been Priestly’s collegial strength for decades. On her behalf, a strategic phone call he makes behind the scenes so Andy returns working at Runway. Reciprocity happens when she is quickly exasperated with Miranda who directly tells her she is waiting patiently for her to fail. Nigel flatly says, “You needed a job, you wanted a job, and now go figure out how to do your job.” Later the one to encourage Miranda to see Nigel’s talents is Andy. The fashion industry’s competitive hype belies that runway-strength friendships are how the business devilishly thrives.

The fast and furious language dance moves in meaning and nuance take work to absorb and are well-worth an effort, a movie to watch for women mentoring each other through generations. Andy’s underling, a Yale graduate who appears to wander aimlessly towards a yogurt purchase in the midst of an all-stakes business negotiation, is what Nigel calls today’s youth being lackadaisical or a “national emergency.” The truth being the opposite creates a funny comment since reality portrays the underling as an aspiring professional who drops her yogurt spoon under a chair at the business table and leaves her phone there to shrewdly record the meeting. Her work saves the day.

In a corporate suits-driven world, a drift towards artificial intelligence everything, Priestly’s quest for beauty in fashion artistry reveals her vulnerability. For her own success, Miranda will need to continue trusting Andy’s quest to keep her journalistic integrity, above all. Relentless to show Miranda she won’t fail is Andy’s pursuit to interview Sasha Barnes, a millionaire recluse refusing to grant media access. Once a phone number is procured from Sasha’s dog walker, who Lily knows, and Andy leaves countless messages, Miranda has an interview she had found impossible before. Barnes finds Runway’s writing has more “gravitas” than in a long while. Andy keeps her integrity and Miranda revisions Runway’s fashion artistry.

In fashion lore the deal is made based on who you know and how women bring forward generational influence to empower across the decades. After the Barnes interview, the rest is Runway history. If curiosity has you on how and where and what and when and why I guess seeing the movie is an enjoyable must.

And for a movie’s truth on the closing notes, characters return to recognizing that friend relations are the living point all along. The fashion vendor who might be visionary just yet despite Priestly lashing her claim, she and Andy are at lunch when a devil menu item arrives—french fries. “Don’t carb shame me. Carbs shared are half the calories,” is a line Emily says to gather friendship alignment. Andy puts her hand on the table to seal the caring-deal. Spikey one-liners are this movie’s nature and reason why sometimes ruthless works. “I won’t hold your hand, but I will be your friend,” Emily says on a wicked smile.