INTERVIEW Star Anne Hathaway dishes about Prada.

STILLS Photos from key scenes in the film.

PHOTOS Exclusive shots of the Prada stars on the red carpet.

REVIEW Is the movie any good? See how it rates.

When Lauren Weisberger's novel was published in 2003, great pains were taken to stress that although the author once worked for Vogue's Anna Wintour, the story's fashion-editor boss from hell was not — repeat, not! — based on her former employer. Fortunately for this film version, Meryl Streep has already helped forestall further comparisons. "She said, 'Look, I don't want to play Anna Wintour, that's not what I'm doing,' " says director David Frankel (Miami Rhapsody, Sex and the City). "She strongly related to the challenges of being a successful, powerful woman in a public business, and all the sacrifice that people in power have to make to do their jobs in a consistently excellent way."

Icy editrix Miranda Priestly is considerably deeper than her novelistic counterpart, says Hathaway, who plays Miranda's assistant, but some of the horror stories got a big-screen upgrade. "A lot of what Lauren had to go through — or what the character had to go through — remained in the movie," Hathaway says. "But we didn't want to accept the characters at face value."

Fashionistas will feast on designs by Chanel, Jimmy Choo, Marc Jacobs, Gucci, Donna Karan, and Valentino, among others. "And certainly, at crucial moments," Frankel says, "Prada is in evidence." — Sara Brady