Anna Wintour film premieres

A film about American Vogue editor Anna Wintour, which had its European premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival last night, shows the most feared woman in fashion in a "surprisingly girlish" light.
 
RJ Cutler's documentary, The September Issue, follows 'nuclear' Wintour, her creative director Grace Coddington and their minions as they put together the 2007 autumn edition of Vogue and attend meetings with designers such as Oscar de la Renta and Jean Paul Gaultier.

Cutler, who previously filmed Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential election campaign in The War Room, "does a terrific job of humanising her", writes Damon Wise in the Times. Wintour is famous as the inspiration for the monstrous boss played by Meryl Streep in the film The Devil Wears Prada, but this documentary is a "sympathetic portrait", says Wise. "Up close, she comes across as surprisingly girlish and even rather sexy with her shy smile and button nose".
 
The British-born editor also reveals why she is so reserved. At one point in the film, the 59-year-old reveals that her father, former London Evening Standard editor Charles Wintour, once told her that he retired because he got too angry. "I get quite angry," she adds, "so I try and restrain that."
 
Not everyone agrees. Bryony Gordon writing in the Daily Telegraph points to a scene in which Wintour asks Prada to "re-interpret" some of their designs and then throws out a $50,000 shoot because she "doesn't like it". "Surely Streep's character was just a gross Hollywood exaggeration?" asks Gordon. "It would seem not. The September Issue is a riveting and brilliant film that makes The Devil Wears Prada look like an episode of The Care Bears."
 
If Wintour is the star of the film, then the best supporting player is Grace Coddington, the Welsh-born former model who started at Vogue on the same day as Wintour, and, as her creative director, appears to be the only person who can stand up to her. As Gordon puts it, "At the end of the film, the editor-in-chief reluctantly concedes that she could not live without Coddington." ·