An age-old question begs to be answered: Which is better, the book or the movie? But today, I will go even further and ask: Is a movie-to-book adaptation better than the traditional book-to-movie adaptation?

Everyone has heard of a book-to-movie adaptation, but not many people know about movie-to-book adaptations. Movie-to-book adaptations are actually a lucrative business. Thousands of authors have pitched the idea of writing books based on popular movies. Some examples include Home Alone, Alien, Indiana Jones, and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.

Today, I will attempt to answer this question in a two-part series, starting with a book-to-movie adaptation: The Devil Wears Prada.

The cult-classic film The Devil Wears Prada is based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Lauren Weisberger. Weisberger’s novel had a chokehold on audiences because it was inspired by her experiences as an assistant to the iconic Anna Wintour.

This inspiration is evident in the main character, Andrea Sachs, or Andy, as her friends call her. Similar to Weisberger, Andy is a blonde intellectual who loves quoting transcendentalists and prides herself on not being like other girls.

Andy dreams of working at The New Yorker so she can tell stories that will change the world. She has spent her whole life working toward this goal by earning a degree from an Ivy League school and moving to the “Big Apple.”

Like many college graduates, Andy is broke and staying on her best friend Lily’s couch. While Lily adores her friend, she also wants Andy off her couch, so she gets her an interview at a magazine company.

Naturally, Andy turns her nose up at the idea of working for a fashion magazine. However, after speaking with some employees, she realizes that working at this “girly” magazine could launch her dream career as a “real journalist.”

All Andy has to do is survive one year as the junior assistant to the head of the magazine and receive a flawless recommendation for her dream job.

But as many know, Andy isn’t working for just any fashion magazine. She works for Runway, the Vogue of Weisberger’s world, led by the infamous Miranda Priestley.

The differences between the novel and the movie are stark, including how Andy gets the interview, the relationships between characters, and even the ending itself.

The movie opens brilliantly, contrasting the polished morning routines of Runway employees with fashion-phobic Andy getting ready for her interview. Once inside the fashion empire, she meets Emily, the recently promoted senior assistant to Miranda Priestley, and Nigel, played by the iconic Stanley Tucci.

Personally, I believe the movie works hard to remove Andy’s pretentious attitude from the story. The book introduces Andy with a Henry David Thoreau quote while she complains about expensive clothing and drives an equally expensive stick shift car. The novel is written in the classic early-2000s first-person style that attempts to convince readers the narrator has changed after recounting a transformative period of life. Unfortunately, the result is a 360-page novel full of mostly annoying, one-dimensional characters.

As a fervent reader, I must confess that I found the movie much better than the book, and it can all be summed up in two words: Book Andy.

Book Andy is whiny, self-centered, and experiences almost no character development. Throughout the novel, she believes Miranda gives her impossible tasks purely out of malice instead of considering that Miranda is the head of a global fashion magazine who worked hard to get where she is.

In the film, Andy grows to respect Miranda. This becomes clear when she defends Miranda to Christian during their date and slowly becomes more fashionable herself. She begins to understand the influence fashion has on the world and, more importantly, how hardworking and powerful Miranda truly is.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Nigel tells Andy to stop whining and start caring about her job. This leads into the famous makeover montage, but it also symbolizes Andy’s growth. She stops viewing Runway as just a stepping stone and begins seeing it as another way to influence the world.

But as Andy grows closer to the fashion world, she slowly abandons her old life.

The best example is when Lily ends up in a coma.

Andy is nearing the end of her Paris trip with Miranda when she receives the call that Lily has been in a terrible car accident. Andy has been having the time of her life in Paris with Miranda and Nigel, seeing the sights and even sharing a vulnerable moment with Miranda about her divorce. Despite hearing the news, Andy decides to stay in Paris because she only has two days left on the trip.

This deplorable act is not even the final straw. Soon after, Andy learns from Christian that Miranda is being replaced by a younger French woman named Jacqueline Follet and that the announcement will happen during a luncheon. Andy rushes to warn Miranda, only to discover Miranda already knows and has outmaneuvered everyone.

However, Miranda saves herself by sacrificing Nigel’s long-awaited promotion to creative director.

All the respect Andy developed for Miranda disappears. During a drive to a fashion show, Andy confronts Miranda for betraying such a loyal employee. Miranda calmly reminds Andy that they are not so different because Andy essentially betrayed Emily when she accepted the Paris trip in the first place.

Shocked by this realization, Andy quits her job and returns to New York to be with Lily.

In the novel, however, Andy quits for a much less impactful reason. Miranda becomes angry after Andy forgets to get passports for Miranda’s twins, and Andy finally decides she has had enough.

In truth, the movie’s ending is far better than the book’s because movie Andy actually changes. She learns to respect the fashion world instead of remaining a pretentious intellectual who looks down on the industry.

And in attempting to answer the age-old question, I have concluded that, at least in the case of The Devil Wears Prada, the film is far better than the source material.