Donald Clarke

At its best, The Devil Wears Prada 2 engages saltily with the social and economic changes that have set in since the 2006 original. One yearns for a little more of Miranda’s amusingly half-hearted attempts to accommodate woke restrictions on her acidic put-downs.

Philippe brings few stylistic flourishes to the film, but the fascinating conversation, punctuated by delving into her personal archives, should be more than enough to satisfy the serious cinephile. She is kinder about Hitchcock than some of his other female leads. She is realistic about the rigours of the studio system.

For all the eccentricity of its premise, Rose of Nevada has things to say about how easily we can become disconnected from the relatively recent past.

The film is about the cost of success. It is about the emptiness of fame. It is about the companionship of women (in small groups and in vast stadiums). Those themes are expounded with an invention and wit that add bounce to a film draped in rich, oil-painterly gloom. Approach with the most open of minds.

The picture, shot in Ireland and Spain, will prove a blast for those who like their horror propulsive, transgressive and (in a good way) nauseating. Cronin and his team haven’t quite solved the age-old problem of what to do with the Mummy, but they have confirmed that it remains a dilemma worth tackling. The film deserves the pharaoh’s ransom it will undoubtedly make.

The film exists to give Lopez an opportunity to bring the house down. She does that, but it’s not quite enough.

Camus’s prose is heard as we sink into intellectual concerns that obsessed French intellectuals through the 1950s. But it remains a gripping piece that treats its source with great respect.

As ever, all these thumping stereotypes would matter less if there was some chemistry between the two leads. Page has sufficient charisma to skirt through the absurdity unscathed. In contrast, Bailey seems dazzled and bemused – neither crafty enough nor ingenuous enough to make sense of the central deceit.

The screenplay blows it at the close with an absurdly clunky flashback that ties up every loose end with improbable neatness, but this remains a decent class of red-meat actioner for a now underserved audience.

Revelling in bright fabrics and seductive horizons, the director, despite all the conflicts, is here to argue for both the warmth of traditional families and the excitement of contemporary youth culture. No film other than Sirat has, this year, made such compelling use of music.