The Devil Wears Hokum
a weekend of two big surprises
In a great move of counter-programming, the two biggest releases this weekend were The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Hokum. One, a much anticipated sequel to a beloved comedy-drama and the other, a unnerving horror film set in rural Ireland. I had the pleasure of seeing both and I’m happy to report that they were both well worth the trip to the cinema! Both of my screenings were packed and it was great to see audiences turning up for both the blockbuster sequel and the original independent horror. I’ll be reviewing both films in this post and there will be plot details and spoilers, you have been warned…
THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2
Despite the fact that I always doubted whether Meryl Streep would break her “no sequels” rule for anything less than brilliant, I was still so hesitant for the long-anticipated sequel to the beloved comedy-drama The Devil Wears Prada, especially as I wasn’t blown away by any of the trailers. Lets face it, it probably had something to do with the fact that the modern box-office has been bombarded by nostalgia-bait, sequels no one asked for and clunky remakes. Thankfully, this time, I was proven wrong and The Devil Wears Prada 2 is one of the stronger legacy sequels of our time.
The film feels darker and more melancholic than the original. When we meet Andy this time around, she’s achieved her journalism dreams and works for a paper called The New York Vanguard but moments later her and all of her colleagues find out they have been laid off…via text. Things aren’t much better at Runway, Miranda is dealing with a huge PR crisis and the magazine’s funding has been slowly dwindling year by year. The film talks a lot about how online publications and social media are taking the cake in the modern age, whilst print media is left to die. It makes some horribly bleak points about how social media and AI are taking the place of actual journalism whilst the arts and media are being cut down more and more each day. Runway is being controlled by a billionaire and that seems just about the only way it can continue keeping its head afloat. The magazine just doesn’t have the same influence it had 20 years ago and is struggling to dominate in a world where people can just scroll away to a hundred other things they find more interesting. This plotline adds another layer to the film that really works. Although I have questions about the film’s resolution, where another billionaire saves the day at Runway, I think the film’s overall message works and it was a great way of bringing the story into the modern day. Taking a slightly bleaker approach than the original really worked for the sequel.
The other thing I loved was the character development, in this film we see Miranda really crack. She fears for the day she has to step back and reckon with who she will be and what she has left, when Runway collapses. It goes without saying that Meryl Streep delivers a great performance (because she always does) but I loved the extra layers they added to Miranda this time around. She still gets her fair share of biting comments but she’s also given the grace to have her own fears on full display. The same can be said for Nigel, who gets a wonderful moment to shine when he hosts the Runway show in Milan and is finally allowed to express his ambitions, after hiding them for so long. My personal favourite moment of his, however, was at the end where he confesses to Andy that he was the reason she was hired back for Runway. I genuinely teared up during this scene, it was so lovely and their friendship has always been one of my favourite parts of the story. There’s another wonderful moment where we see Emily crack and confess to Andy that she wants to be her friend and that she tried calling her when she left Runway, which Andy assumed was a butt-dial. Despite Emily’s flaws in the film, this moment created such a sweet resolution for her character and it was great to see her finally admit she cares for Andy.
The film manages to keep the same spark as the first and is as sweet, funny and charming as you hope it would be. The fashion is still great, the balance of heart and jokes are still there and even though there are a few cheap call-backs, it manages to avoid just feeling like a nostalgia-bait money-making sequel. It’s not perfect but it’s well worth the trip to the cinema and if you loved the original, I guarantee you’ll find a lot to love here too.
HOKUM
I went in completely blind to Hokum, all I knew was it was a horror and it starred Adam Scott and that was enough for me to know I needed to see it! It follows a writer named Ohm who goes to a hotel in rural Ireland to bury his parents ashes, in the place where they had their honeymoon. One night, a woman who works on the bar, Fiona, tells him the honeymoon suite is haunted and that there’s a witch trapped inside. Safe to say, things only escalate from there. Ohm tries to hang himself but Fiona finds him and once Ohm wakes up in hospital, he discovers that Fiona is missing and he ventures into the honeymoon suite to try and find her. There’s also a deeply terrifying donkey, an evil man who turns out to be worse than any of the horrors awaiting Ohm in the honeymoon suite and a hell of a lot of magic mushrooms. Although the premise seems simple: a man goes looking for a missing woman and it all takes place in one location, the film doesn’t have a dull moment. The story is so elevated and well-executed that it manages to turn a simple premise into a quiet modern horror masterpiece.
My favourite thing about the film is that it builds suspense SO well, this was the first film in a long long time where I was actively shrinking myself down in the seat. It doesn’t rely on cheap jump scares to get you and instead builds a perfect atmosphere of tension that leaves your heart racing. There’s so many layers to the story and the script manages to balance them so well. There were a few moments that in the hands of a different writer or director, would feel cheap or corny but I didn’t feel like that at all here. Specifically, the moment where an apparition of Ohm’s mother appears and tells him he’s okay and not to blame for her death, I was expecting to hate that moment but I found it genuinely moving. Hokum is simply one of the best written horror films I’ve seen in a while. It genuinely took me a good 20 minutes to recover from the film once it ended as I was on the edge of my seat the entire time.
Adam Scott was a brilliant leading man and delivers one of his best performances to date, can we make him a scream king please? His character Ohm was a text-book asshole and the film never defends him and he never defends himself from that title either. Scott delivers such a strong performance, delivering a brilliant combination of fear, regret and bitterness. It was great to have a complex horror lead as you don’t know whether to root for him or not and it’s especially brilliant because he’s asking himself the same question.
There have been a lot of lacklustre horror films of the last few years but I’m so glad Hokum manages to deliver a well crafted story full of tension and genuine fear, accompanied by brilliant performances and a well-written script. If you’re a horror fan, Hokum is a film I highly recommend experiencing on the big screen.
It’s release weekends like this one that remind me why I love the cinema so much! I love being surprised by films, whether they’re sequels or original ideas, horror films or comedy-dramas, it’s just great to see two films that have been made with care in packed screens in the cinema. Long live the big screen!
