The September Issue

A cleverly-made documentary, this one. Before we even get to the opening titles Anna Wintour is telling us that some people don’t take fashion very seriously. So we’re not just here to enjoy ourselves. But moments later it seems that we are, as the screen explodes with all the jewel colours of the catwalk, and I found myself wishing I had a pause button in the cinema. Should I watch the clothes, should I watch the audience?

Increasingly I found myself watching Anna. Notoriously known in the trade as “Nuclear Wintour”, she actually comes across as someone you’d quite like to invite to dinner. She’s one of the two strong women in this film, the other being her creative director, Grace Coddington. Both look astonishingly un-airbrushed. In one way Anna is quite unlike her Devil Wears Prada counterpart. Meryl Streep didn’t have her upper arms so constantly on display. I can’t be the only shallow person who found those arms riveting; and why did I find myself mentally calculating these women’s ages? It doesn’t matter. These are two feisty women who become more and more likeable as the film progresses.

And progress it does, towards the September issue of Vogue that’s going to be the biggest ever. This fast-paced film takes us through the five month run-up period of meetings, plans and photo shoots without ever losing momentum. The fact that this isn’t quite up to the minute doesn’t matter, as Vogue is light years ahead of us mere mortals anyway, while if you happen to be a fashionista you can enjoy feeling all nostalgic about belts and colour blocking.

Grace Coddington is truly a creative genius in her styling. And I got so caught up in Anna’s perfectionism that I could have yelled at Mario Testino for not bothering to include the Colisseum in his Rome photo shoot. What was he thinking? Anna took it very calmly, I thought.

See how clever this is? First you think “Oh good, a film about fashion. Shallow, but fun.” Then you think fashion people are going to take themselves far too seriously and you’re going to find the whole thing impossibly pretentious. And then before you know it you’re in there rooting for them and you really care about Grace’s beautiful photos being pulled out and you want Sienna’s hair to look good and you want this September issue to be the best ever.

(I still couldn’t take that guy with the designer tennis stuff though. You really don’t need him, Anna.)

Well done, R.J. Cutler, you hooked me, and I bet I won’t be the only one. And you even gave us the Almodóvar moment. That skinny green model with the luscious red patisserie – superb!