Watching September Issue is similar to watching commedia del arte—you know the characters, the scenarios and the outcomes; yet you still revel in the machinations on stage.
Enter Stage Left Pantalone (Anna Wintour)—status bearer, high priestess, and full of her own importance. She believes in her own self styling as she is shown to be shuttled via driver and unseen airlines to Paris, Milan and the Hamptons.
Enter Stage Right Harlequin (Grace Coddington)—former model who has moved up in the fashion world to become one the greatest creative directors of Vogue. The servant who knows better than the master, she takes no prisoners when confronting Pantalone.
Enter Upstage Il Dottore (Andre Leon Talley)—a buffoon who tries to sound important but simply embarrasses himself by commenting on fashion without viewing himself in the mirror.
While the movie is fun to watch, especially since Harlequin wins in the end, there isn’t anything here that is newsworthy or earth shattering. Only those people interested in Project Runway or who work in the fashion industry would enjoy this movie. If you are interested in food-starved models, you might want to see it. My biggest complaint of the movie is the over-stylized filming. Too many saturated colors—unnaturally blue water in NYC, too green grass in France. It seemed that the Director of Photography purchased a new set of colored lenses and wanted to use all of them.
If you like fashion, put this in your Netflix queue—if not, skip it entirely.
I rate this movie four watches.
Viewed on August 31, 2009 at AMC Empire 25 Theaters (NYC)
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