The September Issue

Directed by R.J. Cutler

(PG-13)

***

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An inside look at life at Vogue magazine

In fashion, there’s no one more influential—or more feared—than Anna Wintour, said Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly. In The September Issue, R.J. Cutler unveils the woman behind the Vogue editor’s famous shades, painting a “lusciously revealing fly-on-the-wall portrait” of her reign over the fashion bible. “Organized so that we observe the ruthlessness, the high perfectionistic logic, of each decision Wintour makes,” the film chronicles the production of the enormous September 2007 issue. A real-life The Devil Wears Prada it’s not, said Mary Pols in Time. Cutler’s documentary is more than one-dimensional. The greatest treat is meeting­ Vogue’s creative director, Grace Coddington. “If Wintour is the pope, Coddington is Michelangelo, trying to paint a fresh version of the Sistine Chapel 12 times a year.” While this depiction of the womens’ relationship is “never boring, it’s also superficial,” said Nathan Rabin in The Onion. They and the magazine’s other colorful characters “might be too much” for a single documentary. With this much drama, every Vogue issue must deserve its own film.