Reviewed - The Devil Wears Prada: As a fashionista fascist, Meryl Streep is hilariously bitchy in this acidic, amusing comedy, writes Michael Dwyer.

ARE there no limits to Meryl Streep's versatility? In the past four years alone, she has played a political manipulator in The Manchurian Candidate, a novelist in Adaptation, a distraught literary editor in The Hours, the multi-phobic Aunt Josephine in the Lemony Snicket movie, a psychoanalyst in Prime, a country singer in A Prairie Home Companion, and three roles in Angels in America, one of them a bearded rabbi.

The Devil Wears Prada taps into Streep's faculty for comedy and mines it for all it's worth, and her scintillating performance is worth the price of admission in itself. Exuding hauteur, she plays the boss from hell, Miranda Priestly, the domineering editor of Runway, the most influential fashion magazine on the newsstands. Miranda is acutely aware of the power she wields and relishes it, striking terror in the hearts of her staff and across the fashion industry.

Anne Hathaway appealingly plays the doe-eyed innocent Andy, an aspiring serious journalist who wanders into the lion's den when she is hired as assistant to Miranda's overtaxed personal assistant, Emily (Emily Blunt). Andy gets an idea of what's ahead of her when Miranda arrives at work, making a grand, swishing entrance that causes hysteria in the building. The first of many acerbic tongue-lashings from her new employer gives Andy a clearer, scarier picture.

Aline Brosh McKenna's screenplay, based on Lauren Weisberger's novel, sparkles with caustic wit and barbed bitchy dialogue, feeding Streep the sharpest, most acidic lines, which she delivers with splendid panache. She is equally adept at catching the human vulnerability that hides beneath Miranda's tough-as-nails exterior.

The movie is, on one level, a cautionary tale about workaholism, questioning why anyone such as Andy or Emily would want to endure a job that entails long hours, poor pay, consistently unreasonable demands and the incessant tyranny of mobile phones, and offers little by way of achievement or even respect. It's also an acute satire on the fashion business, its pretensions and its fickle determinations of what's in and what's out. A post-show party where Miranda glides through the rooms with regal poise turns into an orgy of phoney air-kissing and blatant insincerity.

This is The Meryl Streep Show, but she unselfishly allows ample room for her co-stars to shine, and Blunt, the English actress who emerged from My Summer of Love two years ago, is particularly touching as the stressed-out Emily.