House of Gucci review - Gaga Cinema
“They didn’t fight over land or crown. They fought over their own skins and the leather of their
sacred cows.”
Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci is a pulpy amalgamation of The Godfather and The Bold and Beautiful. As equally serious as it is campy, it’s a family saga of corruption and back-stabbing that ultimately entertains because it may be the most expensive soap opera ever produced. As actors perform their ‘big moments’ and hit those specific notes of over-acting that performers like Al Pacino and Jared Leto revel in, the whole film is almost winking at us, asking, ‘Are you having fun?’
Of course how could the transition of the world’s largest fashion empire be simple? Like the fall of Rome, Ridley Scott portrays the true story of Gucci with the gusto of filming another roman epic. Based on the book by Sara Gay Forden, Scott developed this script with writers for the better part of 20 years, and the result is a movie that feels out of tune to the music it wants to play.
The story is perfect soap opera fodder – Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) is the seed to which Gucci’s downfall grows. From a working class family, she meets Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) at a party, the heir to 50% of the Gucci empire. He is reserved, shy, and unable to move his hips on the dancefloor. But they are smitten and share an intimacy that’s adorable. Yet Rodolfo (a grumpy Jeremy Irons) warns his son that Patrizia is only after his money. “You can’t just marry some girl. You’re a Gucci. You’re different!” Indeed they are.
The other half of the Gucci empire is Aldo (Al Pacino), who spends most of his time in New York with his finger on the pulse of the young rich elite. He is a master of branding, aware that Gucci means more than cheap knockoffs found in market stalls. Pacino has fun embracing an overcooked accent whilst wearing the best stripe suits his brand can offer. He sweeps down Gucci 5th Avenue’s staircase like royalty, offering Patrizia the family discount: “Anything you see is yours.”
It’s almost as if before filming, Scott decided it was a mistake to take these characters too seriously.
And then there’s Aldo’s son, Paolo (Jared Leto), whose performance has been much maligned as one with all the subtly of Nintendo’s Mario. Leto certainly lays it on thick, seemingly improvising and applying mannerisms that put the camp in campy. But his critics are missing one essential positive – if you’re going to hire Jared Leto to put in a performance like this, it should be in a soap opera as silly as House of Gucci. For all the detractors, his tendency to ‘go big’ is just what House of Gucci needs. He livens up a movie that always threatens to devolve into boring procedure by adding a heaped spoonful of satire.
But House of Gucci’s primary arc belongs to Patrizia Reggiani – it’s a classic princess and the pauper thread where she’s suddenly thrust into a world of glamorous fashion and riches. Before too long she quickly adjusts to a life of power and wealth and begins a web of manipulation that pulls the Gucci’s apart. She is interesting but undermined by a script that does her a significant disservice – her transition from starry-eyed newbie to manipulative back-stabber is so swift, it takes place almost in a single scene. It undoes the strong showing Lady Gaga provides, a woman who is complex and contradictory, simultaneously power-hungry and sensitive. It’s a shame the script couldn’t forge a path for her that was more believable.
Ridley Scott has said that during filming he was ‘slightly pushing the material into satirical.’ I’m intrigued by how much the material was consciously satirical before Scott starting doing all that pushing. I suspect not much, which makes the result a little awkward. His turn towards satire was likely his way of arming himself with a tool that would keep his audience interested in a rather stiff plot about trading shares. During the final act when characters spiral into their most selfish, isolated selves, you will likely find it’s the small moments of melodrama you will hold to for comfort. It’s almost as if before filming, Scott decided it was a mistake to take these characters too seriously.
Yet it’s a clumsy affair that 20 years of writing has failed to perfect. What we have instead is Ridley Scott stretching his old bones slightly toward comedy, but stopping short to the frustration of many. Oddly, the satirical beats colliding with sincere melodrama recalls Frank Perry’s infamous Mommie Dearest, albeit an upmarket version that’s not completely blind to its intentions. His actors are working hard, but its difficult to tell if they’re in on the joke.
