There has been no shortage of commentary and discourse on the nature of Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) and Nate Cooper’s (Adrian Grenier) relationship in the years since The Devil Wears Prada came out in 2006. Because, yes, through a “retroactive lens,” viewers have come to regard Nate’s behavior toward Andy as, for the most part, utterly appalling. More than his blasé attitude about her coup of landing a job at Runway, it is Nate’s consistent refusal to support her growth and success at this job (instead viewing her visual “tweaks” as a sign of a deeper change in her personality that he doesn’t care for) that ends up revealing his true colors throughout the Aline Brosh McKenna-penned film.
Not that Nate waits very long to parade such true colors, for it’s just under eleven minutes into the movie that he materializes to deliver his first line, which is directed at Andy: “Wait, you got a job at a fashion magazine?” Andy confirms, “Mhmm.” Nate then makes the dig, “What was it, a phone interview?” And so right there, from his very first scene, Nate reveals the nature of who he is: someone who prefers to tear his girlfriend down and prey on her worst insecurities, rather than lift her up and offer an encouraging word.
But, because it is 2006, Andy seems game enough to take it in stride, replying to his comment with a smile, “Ow! Don’t be a jerk.” Of course, what she would say if this weren’t such a “family-friendly” script is, “Shut the fuck up, dickhead.” Alas, Andy is a long way from 2026, when such a response might be more likely (even if in the time since the original movie was released, its distributor, 20th Century Fox, became 20th Century Studios and is now owned by the ultimate in “family-friendly” enterprises, Disney, ergo making the potential for such “crude” language even less likely).
Indeed, there are many whose perspective on Nate has shifted to recasting him as “the real villain” of the movie, in a manner that is far more insidious because it isn’t technically as overt as what Miranda does. No, his villainy is in the “subtleties” of telling Andy something like, “Give me that, there’s like eight dollars of Jarlsberg in there” after she’s finished railing against Runway in the wake of her first day working there. So it is that, rather than doing much to comfort her in a manner that she needs (instead trying to feed her because cooking is his “thing”), Nate is more concerned with ensuring his precious grilled cheese sandwich isn’t wasted.
And maybe that’s why it’s another little while before the viewer is given a scene of him and Andy again, this time one that allows her to show off her Runway makeover to him (for, as The Princess Diaries established, Anne Hathaway is a sucker for a makeover movie). One that prompts Nate to look do a double take as he walks past her, initially assuming she’s a stranger. This being another insult to Andy’s “true” appearance. And when she asks him, all coquettishly, “So, what do you think?” Nate is quick to play along with the hot stranger game, answering, “Uh, I think we better get out of here before my girlfriend sees me.” Oof, it is beyond cheesy and sleazy.
Nonetheless, for a brief moment, the “kinkiness” of Andy’s so-called alter ego seems to placate Nate from getting on her jock again about working too much. Which is honestly the most bizarre, out of touch complaint not only from a hetero man (many of whom are perfectly content to be away from “the old ball and chain” whenever possible), but anyone of any gender living in New York City. Regardless of “time period.” In fact, in the 2000s, the proverbial “NYC hustle” stereotype was only further ramping up. With everyone, like Andy, expected to still bring their A-game while looking “effortlessly chic” (for this was a decade when a sense of fashion and personal style hadn’t totally dissipated). As she does in the montage that follows her “sexy stranger” scene with Nate while, of course, Madonna’s “Vogue” plays in the background. And this is the moment that’s meant to indicate she’s “changing”—morphing into exactly the kind of person that “thrives” in New York. That is to say, someone who is career-obsessed and far less interested in the details and “required nurturings” of a personal life.
This being exactly what Nate expects from “his woman” despite himself being obsessed with his own career as an up-and-coming chef. A point he emphasizes with such pontificating as, “So we spent a whole semester on potatoes alone. You take the fry and you squeeze it…” (oof, nothing worse than a culinary school bro). That’s the spiel he’s giving to Lily (Tracie Thoms) and Doug (Rich Sommer) as Andy walks into the restaurant bearing free (though also very expensive) gifts, courtesy of Miranda “The Devil Herself” Priestly (Meryl Streep) not wanting them. And while Lily and Doug are endlessly impressed by the $1,100-dollar Bang & Olufsen phone, the Clinique products and the $1,900-dollar Marc Jacobs bag, the entire time she’s doling out these presents, Nate has a total sourpuss on. As if he can’t stand that she’s actually enjoying some of the perks of her job. Not only that, but declaring that there’s more to Runway than “fancy purses” as she goes on to highlight the magazine’s recent pieces written by the likes of Jay McInerney and Joan Didion (at the time, still the height of the “New York literati”)—plus an interview with Christiane Amanpour!
All Nate can say to her wide-eyed enthusiasm is, “Looks like someone’s been drinking the Kool-Aid.” Yes, oh so supportive indeed. And as Andy is about to ask him what he’s talking about (not yet wanting to process what a dick he is), that’s when her phone rings (the signature ring of a T-Mobile Sidekick), with Nate mocking her that it’s the “Dragon Lady.” He then snatches the phone and tosses it to Lily, who tosses it to Doug—all while Andy is freaking out about missing the call, much to their collective schadenfreude. When she manages to answer in time and tell Miranda she’s leaving “right now,” she turns to her “friends” and tells them, “You know, you guys didn’t have to be such assholes.”
She’s not wrong. And it gives her all the more ammunition to at least “slightly” enjoy herself when she goes to run the errand Miranda requested—which is to pick up some sketches from James Holt (Daniel Sunjata), a designer she’s shown favor to of late. As it happens, Holt is having a party and tells Andy to enjoy some “hard liquor” for her trouble. Leaving her with a glass of something he calls “deadly,” this is the moment Christian Thompson (Simon Baker) chooses to swoop in and introduce himself, leading Andy to fangirl out as he’s a writer whose work she respects. Needless to say, engaging with a man like this—who isn’t threatened by Andy orbiting this world—probably puts Nate in an even harsher light for her.
However, he does look all shiny and new again when Andy needs someone to call about ten minutes after the scene where she branded him an asshole. This because she’s majorly fallen out of favor with Miranda after a very botched delivery of “The Book” (a mock-up of the latest issue of Runway), which leads Miranda to retaliate by demanding that Andy get her the unpublished manuscript of the forthcoming Harry Potter novel (which, one assumes, due to the year, was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince). Knowing this is an impossible task, Andy does her best to get it by conveniently hitting up Christian (hence, they’re well-timed flirtatious initial encounter just before) to see if he can gain access to it in his position as a well-connected writer. After making that call, though, she rings Nate at his restaurant and tells him she’s probably going to have to quit before she gets fired. Music to Nate’s ears.
That is, until he walks into the door of their apartment that night bearing Dean & Deluca bounty (though once again listing out the price of things being “like five dollars a strawberry” [as he did for the Jarlsberg] to make it feel like another guilt trip kind of meal) and sees that Andy is “still working on the twins’ science project.” This deflates him enough for Andy to explain that she had a “moment of weakness” in thinking about quitting. To which Nate replies, “Yeah, well, either that or your job sucks and your boss is a wacko” She then has to assure him, “I’m still the same person I was. I still want the same things, okay?” She adds, “Same Andy, better clothes.” Though Nate is quick to insist, “I like the old clothes.” To disprove that sentiment, Andy has to show Nate her new lingerie underneath what she’s wearing to remind him that isn’t entirely true, once again distracting him with her “sexuality” (as Jenna Maroney would say).
Alas, Nate can only be distracted by that for so long. As can Andy only be distracted by her job for so long before she realizes that, like Runway itself, she and Nate simply don’t fit together anymore. And maybe they never really did. Maybe it just took the “New York lifestyle” to put their “love” to the ultimate test. Or maybe it took Andy having the technically more worthwhile-in-the-long-run job for both of them to understand that Nate isn’t evolved enough to “handle” a “career woman” (though no one ever says “career man” about a man that has to work long hours). That much further emphasized when Andy is asked at the last minute to show face at what amounts to the Met Gala (though in the movie, it’s billed as “Runway Celebrates the Age of Fashion”) and ends up missing Nate’s birthday party.
When she shows up to the apartment with a cupcake that has a single lit candle in the middle, Nate is hardly soothed. Nor is he when he overhears at Lily’s art show that Andy is going to Paris with Miranda for Fashion Week. This piece of information being the final nail in the coffin of their relationship since, instead of being happy for her that she gets to enjoy such an incredible opportunity, he tells her, “We can stop pretending like we have anything in common anymore.” But it seems Nate has nothing in common with the majority of people who work “conventional” jobs in New York. Forced into long hours (complete with the subway commute) whether they try to find the “work-life balance” or not. Them’s simply the breaks when you want to live in “the greatest city in the world” (ha).
Yet Nate delivers one last coup de grâce of a guilt trip when Andy’s phone rings in the middle of their breakup, informing her, “You know, in case you were wondering, the person whose calls you always take, that’s the relationship you’re in.” And yeah, that is the relationship most New Yorkers are in, first and foremost: the one with their boss. Because that’s who keeps their job, therefore their bag, secure.
Even so, Andy doesn’t have enough of a spine to tell Nate to fuck off and realize that if you wanna succeed in “the big city,” this is what’s expected. Instead, she gives him the satisfaction of telling him at the end of the movie, “You were right about everything. That I turned my back on my friends and my family, and everything I believed in.” In other words, she moved to New York City. But Nate jokes that she turned her back on them for “shoes and shirts and jackets and belts” when, in actuality, she did so because that is the tacit agreement one enters when they 1) decide to live in the most expensive city in the U.S. and 2) work corporate there. Something that Andy perhaps taught Nate by the conclusion of The Devil Wears Prada seeing as how he’s going to move to Boston instead. Mind you, it’s for a sous-chef job at the Oak Room that will likely be as all-consuming as working as Miranda’s assistant. But hey, as usual, it’s okay when a man does it.
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