Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen play Angela and Joe, a married couple who clearly have communication issues among other issues in their relationship. Edward Norton and Penélope Cruz play Hawk and Pína, their upstairs neighbors that are coming over for a visit, a somewhat new couple that are clearly sexually active, given Joe is very annoyed by the noise they make.

Angela and Joe, as the hosts, have very different ideas of how they want this night to go. Joe, not even knowing this get together was happening, wants to bring up the noise that their upstairs neighbors constantly make. He does not care about making friends with these neighbors. Angela, on the other hand, wants to apologize for their own noise from when they recently renovated their apartment, and wants to strengthen the bond these two couples have. We soon find out that Hawk and Pína have their own ideas for how they want this night to go.

Other than some extras in the opening sequence, they're the only four characters in the movie, and it all takes place in one night in one apartment. Simple enough set up that somehow leads itself to one of the best movies we've gotten in the past year.

All four of these performances are among the best of the year, with great chemistry between all of them, bringing to life four very different characters. The comedic timing from each of them is always on point, as are the more serious moments. Cruz is the standout, giving what might just be her best performance and being the anchor that sells the big climax scene towards the end.

The entire movie taking place in one apartment that's arguable fairly basic could have been a downside to the movie, but it's elevated to the highest possible level with how it's used and filmed. There are so many creative shots, in particular the ones involving windows, that adds so much to the visual landscape of this apartment.

The real standout here, however, is the very tight screenplay. Rashida Jones and Will McCormack found a way to make the dialogue exciting every step of the way. The interactions between characters felt unique to each of their pre-established relationships, information was revealed at exactly the right time, the comedy was eased in with the very real subjects effortlessly. The whole film lives and breathes off of the dialogue and it exceeds at just that. The movie takes some unexpected turns that keeps the audience on their feet, reaching a thought provoking conclusion, all while being hilarious throughout.

Olivia Wilde's direction and the ensembles performances also elevate that screenplay and all work together in tandem. The pacing is pitch perfect, with things speeding up and slowing down at precisely the right moments. The way these characters feel about each other was baked into their body language and facial expressions, adding a level of sincerity to the information revealed about past encounters throughout. Everything was lively and it all kept me drawn in.

It's hard to dive into everything that made the interactions between these characters thrive without getting into spoilers that shouldn't be shared prior to watching the movie. The turns it takes were thrilling, and it's a movie worth going in blind.

All of this made for one of the most fun, unexpected experiences in the theater I've had all year, and a movie I'm beyond excited to revisit.

Score out of 10:

Whenever a sequel is announced, there's usually some question about how good it's going to be in relation to the first. Especially when a movie is as beloved as The Devil Wears Prada, there's a lot the movie has to live up to. Thankfully, this sequel does a lot right.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 sees the return of Anne Hathaway as Andy Sachs, who, shortly after getting fired from her current job, gets a call to return to Runway. She finds out upon arriving that it was not Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) who rehired her, and seemingly, Miranda doesn't even remember her. Nigel (Stanley Tucci) still works at Runway twenty years later, but Emily (Emily Blunt) no longer does, instead working at Dior.

The return of these four iconic characters starts the movie out at an advantage. All four performances are just as strong as they were twenty years ago. These are four top tier actors who effortlessly found these characters all over again, and the familiarity sets us right back into this world.

The first half of the movie is genuinely very fun, maybe even more so than the first movie. There's a lot of the same, but there's also a lot pushing the narrative forward. We see how hurt Andy is that Miranda doesn't remember her and how there's an even bigger drive for Andy to impress her than in the first film. We see Andy want to reconnect with Emily and know when and why she left Runway. We see how effortlessly she reconnects with Nigel and is surprised he hasn't really gone anywhere with his career. We see where these characters have grown and where they have stayed the same through the eyes of Andy, and we see how much that drives her actions and desires throughout the film.

The subplots also work better here than in the first film. My biggest issue with the original film is how disjointed it can all feel when we go from scenes of Andy working to scenes of her boyfriend to scenes of her friends. Here, those similar story beats felt more naturally weaved in. The friends feel like they serve a little more of a purpose than just noticing that the job is changing her. While the romance could have easily been written out of this film, it still feels a step beyond the one note nature of Nate from the first film. This isn't to say it was perfect, or that I still didn't prefer the scenes when we're focused on Andy at work, but it didn't disrupt the flow nearly as much.

The third act is where the movie starts to lose me. It never completely loses the fun spirit of the movie, but it has so much payoff that it wants to give that it starts to feel repetitive. Character realizations about another character or about something that happened earlier in the film happen are handled in the same way with the same beats for what feels like twenty scenes in a row. Many of these moments felt necessary, but there had to be a way to spread them out more or let some of them develop more naturally. This is where it felt like the flow was interrupted with these scenes causing a more somber tone than these movies are typically going for. It left me ready for the movie to end a few scenes before it did, which is disappointing when the first half is so fun.

Still, as a sequel, this was very satisfying. Most of it felt like it built upon the first and even improved in some aspects. While a better final act could have gotten me to say this is the better movie, I still left feeling like it was on par with it, and that's all I really need from a sequel.

Score out of 10: