The Queen Bee in question, Mz. Wintour.

I admit, highbrow fashion stuff sort of freaks me out. When I went to see The September Issue (a documentary about the world of high fashion as seen through the eyes of Vogue‘s infamous Anna Wintour) at The Naro, I was a little worried. I’m not so into seeing the world in some one-dimensional, judgmental way. I grew up with a grandma that met a bad haircut or ill-fitting top with eyebrow-raised disdain. And that’s just not my thing.

But as I sit down to write this review, something occurs to me: That maybe learning how to see below the surface of what seems so shallow–in this case, the fashion world–is the point of this lovely little documentary.

The September Issue is a movie about the most important and sought-after work of high-fashion commentary and imagery in the world: the issue Vogue puts out at the beginning of the fall fashion season, in September. The director focuses on Vogue‘s longtime editor, Anna Wintour. Anna is not exactly a lady one might call a peach. She is nothing if she’s not a little icy (Meryl Streep’s The Devil Wears Prada character was rumored to be based on Anna).

Think Cruella DeVille. Going into it, I could imagine Anna skinning dalmatians with one hand and paging an intern with the other. “Gaultier! Get me Gaultier!!” she’d scream. “And get me something for this puppy blood.” But that’s not the person the documentary wants me to get to know.

Unlike the Anna of rumors or hyperbole, the Anna of The September Issue flinches. We meet her daughter Bree, who denounces the value or validity of the fashion industry. Anna watches on and cringes–as we all would–and we cringe for Anna too. No matter what your job is, it’s not easy to hear your daughter trash it.

It’s when Anna talks about her successful brothers’ and sisters’ total disregard for her career that the veneer finally fully cracks. “They find what I do amusing,” she says as tears come to her eyes. Imagine that. The most powerful woman in a trillion dollar industry, but you get no love at Thanksgiving.

And that’s when Anna’s always-crossed arms and the always sideways-casting eyes begins to take on new meaning. She reminds me of myself, when I feel like I’m in a bind or I’ve got too many people to answer to, and too many still left to reach. She may be decisive and quick with the axe, but I don’t think she’s some bitch living in Gargamel’s castle. She’s fabulous, for certain, but she struggles and she tries to hide it, like anyone would. Unfortunately, the camera’s a bitch and it won’t lie, and she, of all people, knows that.

Seeing what pumps beneath the iron-caste skin of Anna Wintour is the heart of the movie, but it’s her Number Two that is the soul. Grace Coddington is the brilliant genius and Creative Director behind the magazine’s seductive and artistically-crafted pages.  Grace is everything Anna is not. She coaxes with good nature and laughs at her own mistakes. She dreams and crafts entire universes of art, beauty, love and depth! That’s my kind of woman. She’s also a mess and looks halfway homeless with her fro’ed out hair and her crooked eyes. She’s always in black and she stomps around, wildly, without any hint of the swagger she must have known as a model, many years before. However, she, like Ms. Winter, catches sight of everything, every teeny, weeny, eeny detail. While Anna looks critically and reacts swiftly with her red pen, Grace adores, considers, and lovingly caresses until her subject transforms itself into whimsy, wonderment and beauty.

Looking at her beside Anna, one almost feels sorry for the prettier, yet wintrier one of the two, knowing that Anna has to keep so much inside, while Grace gets to unlock Pandora’s box, every day of her life.

Sure, it’s a movie that on the surface is about a bunch of perfect models and celebrities, all stuffed inside sample size couture any woman couldn’t dream of. Yes, it’s about money and power and the struggle between art, love, passion, power and finance. But that’s really just on the surface.

The September Issue is about two women, both passionate, both visionary, as they move through the final act of their life on the grand stage of Vogue. It’s about accepting the life we’ve led up to this point. It’s about seeing yourself in the mirror and acknowledging all of you. Yes, give yourself props for the pretty eyes and smile, but the wrinkles are there too, and they are deepening.

The September Issue is playing at The Naro at least through next Sunday.