All About Eve, made in 1950, was a much more modern film. It, too, dealt with a successful, monster female (Bette Davis, who else? ) and an innocent lovely who came along to upset her.

All About Eve's depiction of female rivalry between the generations was much more radical and surprising than The Devil Wears Prada. For a start, the monster female changed. Also, the jokes were better.

That said, The Devil Wears Prada is great fun and a very good way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon, if you're interested. And a lot of people are interested, to judge by the crowded cinema last weekend. You do get about 45 minutes of refreshingly funny nastiness before the whole story collapses into Cinderella.

The Devil Wears Prada is fashion pornography, in the same way that Sex And The City was fashion pornography.

That is, it aspires to a certain level of realism about young working women, whose limitless supply of couture clothing arrives from heaven, without explanation. God, it's enjoyable.

But its interpretation of the fashion industry is rather strange. To watch The Devil Wears Prada you would think the fashion industry was run by women (as if) and that the strongest drug available within it was caffeine.

Meryl Streep is wonderful as the Boss From Hell, Miranda Priestly. This character is (very) firmly based on Anna Wintour, the English editor of American Vogue, a woman so terrifying that she is also known as Nuclear Wintour.

As someone in the film says, Miranda is "a notorious sadist, and not in a good way".

Miranda's innocent assistant, Andy Sachs, is played by the wide-eyed Ann Hathaway, who starred in the Princess Diaries before she got a small part in Brokeback Mountain.

But none of this need detain us here.

The fact of the matter is that The Devil Wears Prada is a depressingly conservative film to serve up to any ambitious young woman in the 21st century. Its message seems to be that it is a bad idea to become a very successful female because, although you will be a vital influence in a multi-million dollar industry, everyone's going to be scared of you and you won't be able to give your boyfriend all the attention he so richly deserves.

Andy Sachs is living with a young chef, who resents all the time she is spending meeting Miranda's unreasonable demands upon her. Chefs, as far as I know, work the most unsociable hours possible and are not often home before 2am.

Nevertheless, Andy's boyfriend, and two of her other friends, feel she has been fatally corrupted by the world of fashion. They don't want her to go changing . . . she has to go back to the way she was before.

Interestingly, what Andy was before was an aspiring journalist. The strong message of The Devil Wears Prada is that the fashion world is full of uniquely unreasonable people, unlike the rational realms of professional cooking or serious writing.

All of this is not just depressing, it is untrue. Miranda Priestly may be the Boss From Hell but . . . like all dictators . . .

she survives on other people's love of her certainties. She is supremely good at her job and combines her toughness with great style. Anna Wintour gave a dinner for the cast of The Devil Wears Prada.

Miranda's office in the film was so like her real office that Wintour redecorated.

In other words, Anna/Miranda is a talented person, a force to be reckoned with. She is good at her job.

The most dangerous message of The Devil Wears Prada is that bullies know best. As young women . . . and young men . . . all over the world face bullying in the work place, this is not a good maxim. Most office bullies are not good at their jobs, and are taking out their insecurities on the vulnerable.

In real life, most of the time, The Devil Wears Dunnes.