The Bottom Line: Hathaway Trades Her Tiara for ‘Prada’

Don’t blame Anne Hathaway for selling her soul to the devil.

Like Lindsay Lohan, Hathaway wants to prove that she’s no mere Disney dolly. She’s already lent her presence to several art-house offerings—including Brokeback Mountain—to earn respect and credibility, a move Lohan‘s following.

And Hathaway and Lohan are both counting on Meryl Streep to aid their causes. The results, though, are likely to be very different. 

A Prairie Home Companion isn’t much of a showcase for Lohan, who never receives her opportunity to match wits with Streep. Robert Altman’s eccentric ensemble comedy also doesn’t hold the same mainstream appeal as Hathaway‘s crowd-pleasing collaboration with Streep, The Devil Wears Prada. This adaptation of the chick-lit bestseller should make more money during its opening weekend than A Prairie Home Companion has since debuting June 9.

Hathaway needs The Devil Wears Prada to help her finally shake off the G-rated image she cultivated with the contemporary fairy tale The Princess Diaries, Ella Enchanted and Hoodwinked.

“Nothing against Princess Diaries, but it has been a brick wall in the past,” Hathaway told Entertainment Weekly.

She tired to distance herself from The Princess Diaries with Havoc. But the cautionary tale of teenage debauchery never made it to theaters, despite the exposure Hathaway‘s nude scenes received on the Internet.

No prude, Hathaway again revealed all in Brokeback Mountain. Perhaps there would have been more talk about Hathaway‘s backseat tryst with Jake Gyllenhaal had less attention been paid to Gyllenhaal’s liaisons with Heath Ledger. That said, Brokeback Mountain allowed Hathaway to show there’s more to her than the pratfalls she endured in The Princess Diaries. Sure, all eyes were on Gyllenhaal, Ledger and Michelle Williams. But Brokeback Mountain should still open doors for Hathaway for years to come (and allow her to walk out on films such as Knocked Up, the new comedy from 40 Year-Old Virgin’s Judd Apatow).

Take The Devil Wears Prada, for example.

Streep approved the casting of Hathaway—as the frumpy, put-upon assistant to her demanding, bitchy fashion magazine editor—after watching Brokeback Mountain. Hathaway‘s performance in The Devil Wears Prada isn’t revelatory. The Princess Diaries demonstrated she possessed good comic timing. But a confident and mature Hathaway holds her own against a deliciously monstrous Streep.

After locking horns with Streep, the Brooklyn-born Hathaway assumes an English accent as Jane Austen in Becoming Jane. Hathaway acknowledges she’s a controversial choice to play the Pride and Prejudice author. Considering she seemed out of place in Nicholas Nickleby, Hathaway could be setting herself up for a fall.

Still, Becoming Jane adheres to Hathaway‘s goal “to do some things for me,” as she told USA Weekend in 2004. If The Devil Wears Prada pleases both glamazons and the sartorially challenged, and Becoming Jane wins over her most vocal detractors, Hathaway could end up doing more for herself than she ever imagined.

The Bottom Line
Hilary Duff, another Mouse House fixture, recently told Elle that she would not do a “superedgy independent movie” for fear of alienating her (diminishing) teeny-bop fan base. Bad idea. Hathaway is certainly reaping the benefits of Brokeback Mountain. By making films that appeal to an adult audience, Hathaway‘s taking the proper steps to ensure she won’t be forced to spend the rest of her career wearing Princess Mia’s crown. Same for Lindsay Lohan, who knows she can’t be a mean girl for life. And what will Duff want when she realizes that her fans are too old and too cool to give her the time of day? To be in Hathaway‘s Jimmy Choos, of course.