House Of Gucci never reaches camp nirvana, even with Lady Gaga on its runway
Ridley Scott's melodrama about the Italian fashion family has its moments, but not enough of them
Film Reviews Gucci
House Of Gucci rests on an elevated pedigree: Its cast is star-studded, its production design extravagant, its director A-list. (This is the second Ridley Scott movie to hit theaters in as many months.) Yet the publicity around this fashion-world biopic has been closer to the lead-up to a juicy TV-movie biopic like Britney Ever After or Lifetime’s own House Of Versace. The initial announcement prompted a euphoric reaction from fans, followed by giddy rubbernecking as paparazzi photos began leaking from the set. Trailers and pre-release interviews continued to build hype. Did you hear that Lady Gaga stayed in character for a year and a half? Or that Jared Leto underwent a complete physical transformation? By now, the week of release, you wonder if the movie could ever live up to the one audiences have built in their heads.
Gaga certainly brings moments of spidery chic to her role as couture-clad Lady Macbeth Patrizia Reggiani (neé Gucci), while Leto does indeed confound, under mounds of prosthetics, as luxury failson Paolo Gucci. But you’d have to squint pretty hard to see a howling high-camp romp in House Of Gucci. Instead, what we get is a fact-based family melodrama, and a rather meandering one at that. Any movie that inspires Al Pacino to go full Heat can’t be written off entirely as a kitsch artifact, but for the most part Scott leaves the exaggerated Italian expressiveness to his cast—or, to be more specific, half of it.
For while Gaga and Leto are chef’s kissing to the Milanese rafters, Adam Driver (as Gucci heir Maurizio) and Jeremy Irons (as Gucci patriarch Rodolfo) stick to a more earthbound school of acting. And so they form the bumpers off which their co-stars ping. That has its pleasures, particularly in the pairings of Gaga and Driver and Leto and Pacino (who plays Paolo’s disappointed dad, Aldo Gucci). The former are more convincing early on in the film, where the interplay between the passionate Gaga and more reserved Driver reflects the heady early days of the characters’ relationship. Meanwhile, Leto and Pacino keep rising to meet each other’s level, whipping their scenes into a gesticulatory frenzy that provides some of the film’s more outrageous moments.
Salma Hayek does the same for Gaga as a TV psychic-turned-close confidant, but that’s not until late into this 157-minute film. We begin in the late ’70s, when Gucci was a family business (an aristocratic one, but family owned nonetheless) and Patrizia simply a secretary at her father’s modest trucking business. A chance encounter at a disco party leads to an exhilarating romance, but the free spirit and proletarian directness that Maurizio loves about Patricia are the same qualities that make her a less-than-desirable bride for a Gucci. They get hitched anyway, and Patrizia takes to the upper-class Gucci lifestyle like she was born to it. She also develops some strong opinions about how Gucci should be run, setting off a chain of events that eventually leads to murder.
There’s a lot of plot in House Of Gucci, whose story spans decades and continents. There are also a lot of bizarre one-liners, from a script that’s the movie’s weakest asset. (These, of course, sound silliest in Leto’s cartoon pizzaiolo accent.) But rather than submit to going over the top, Scott keeps the filmmaking on a relatively even keel, balancing out the excesses of both the characters and the cast. The director’s overkill is mostly auditory: He dots the film with blindingly obvious ’80s needle drops and works in odd, incongruous sound effects—at one point, a scene of Gaga crying is soundtracked by cats yowling in the background.
Both of these techniques play like a tacit acknowledgement of the inherent vulgarity of the enterprise, a movie about people for whom too much was never enough. Mauricio and Patrizia’s rapacious appetites for luxury are rendered with an eye for detail: The film opens with a closeup of Driver’s wrist adorned with an absurdly expensive watch, and every table around which our characters gather is piled high with wine glasses, espresso cups, and overflowing ashtrays. Figures like Anna Wintour, André Leon Talley, and Karl Lagerfeld—seen front row at a fashion show with his beloved cat Choupette—make fictionalized cameos, providing amusing Easter eggs for students of fashion history. And of course, Gaga’s outfits are to die for, although she doesn’t reach her full diva potential until it’s almost too late.
The movie could easily become too much as well. That it doesn’t is both admirable and disappointing. On the one hand, Gucci comes so close to flowering into something bonkers that its more moderate tendencies feel like a tease. On the other hand, keeping the movie itself in check gives Gaga’s star an opportunity to burn even brighter: She might not deliver the most subtle performance, but she’s certainly magnetic. In the end, however, Patrizia Reggiani’s Wikipedia page is more entertaining than the middle hour of House Of Gucci. Maybe they’re saving the brain tumor and the pet parrot for the sequel?
62 Comments
Oh, darn. This was honestly one of my most expected movies of the year, the one that I was actually planing to return to the theaters to see. I’ll probably still go but my hype has really died down. Seems like a waste of a great story and an incredible cast.
I’m really here for the costumes and the hot Gaga and Driver.
It does seem notable that with this, Cruella & Last Night in Soho there are three big films this year sort of about fashion.
we queers have been targeted with a lot of coded studio shenanigans, but we’ll still take what we get $$$
Sorry, but not this queer. I’ll wait till this is appears online.
Cruella was surprisingly enjoyable.
Dune may not be about fashion, but its costuming is more interesting than any of those, IMO.
Aren’t we all?The only reason I’d see this movie is to revel in its campy performances and over-the-top excesses.
Lol, thank you for this.
Patrizia Reggiani (neé Gucci)“Née” means “born,” so by this you are saying she was born a Gucci and married into the name Reggiani, when it’s the other way around, more or less. (Technically she was apparently born Patrizia Martinelli, with Reggiani the name of her adoptive father.)
Beat me to it, and Martinelli is accurate.
They also switched the é and e lol
Do you really expect the pretentious hipster critics of this site to know obscure, French-derived grammar? They only pretend to be that learned.
As in “I’m on the right track baby, I was Née This Way”
I was SOOOOO lost in this review because of that mistake. As a result, I thought Driver and Gaga were brother and sister and kept trying to figure out who Gaga married that she changed her name to Reggiani. Finally I realized this must be the issue and came to see what others were saying.
Careful now. Pointing out obvious writing/editing errors that completely change factual information is grounds for being labelled a backwards malcontent by some folks here these days.
I’m not so sure I believe this review. I heard that Ridley Scott forced his actors to perform at their best potential, and also that he only hires great actors. So, how could this movie be anything less than great?
Based on this review, it sounds like great performances saddled with a mediocre script.
another ridley scott turd! barf!
You know, I’m okay with it not being a “howling high-camp romp” about [spoiler?] a real-life murder, and at this point I’m willing to see give any movie starring Adam Driver a chance. He’s been consistently good in everything I’ve seen him in.
I thought he was horribly miscast in TFA but damn if he didn’t have me by the end. That was my first experience with his work, and I agree he’s been pretty much spot-on in everything else of his I’ve seen. I’ll say I was glad to see him do something a little looser with Logan Lucky (even if he was sort of the straight man of the operation).
I’m just glad it’s out already. The fucking hype and discourse among gay movie fans was exhausting.
sorry we exhaust you, I’m sure you say the same about marvel fans, or pretty much any other big blockbuster.
I finally watched NO TIME TO DIE after waiting the requisite six weeks for home rental, and now every time I watch something on YouTube I get the same fucking ad for the film, which I would have otherwise forgotten about 24 hours later.
By comparison, the GUCCI ads have been a delight.
I should say that I am myself a gay movie fan, so I’m not throwing stones. But there are only so many times you can deal with the same argument over Gaga vs. Stewart.
My bad, well it’s Stewart for me, but I’m here for the movie.
obviously. it’s stewart all the way.
are you taking the piss? Stewart wins hands down. Spencer is one of the best films of the year. it’s a great claustrophobic thriller and a dark comedy on manners.
It’s Jessica Chastain vs Kristen Stewart, with Stewart for the win.
This is pretty wild to hear, because before I saw the trailer ahead of Dune I had no idea about the existence of this film, let alone that Ridley had a second film with Adam Driver releasing in as many months.
I am a movie fan but I am regrettably straight, so that may be the explanation.
Sounds like “that lot” will be disappointed.
Gaga, oooh la laAlso I think she is very talented
Ridley Scott is already blaming members of The Silent Generation for the film’s eventual failure at the box office.
These, of course, sound silliest in Leto’s cartoon pizzaiolo accentWhen they told him he was playing a loser Italian brother, his research didn’t go very far.
Pretty sure this is the new poster child. Just ask him!
Maybe they’re saving the brain tumor and the pet parrot for the sequel?House of Tucci?
Jare Leto is to stunty bullshit what Johnny Depp is to pancake makeup and stupid hats.
Is anyone so enamored of this work that it was worth bothering to dress him up in a couple hours of prosthetics every day? There’s no one less publicly offputting that was available for a Ridley Scott film about something this pulpy?
🤌
Nah, it’s obvious you didn’t like it because you’re a whippersnapper always on Facebook on your blasted phone. This film can only be appreciated by good people who remember when movies were Movies and not some CG hero bashing some portal in the sky. You didn’t see directors in the 70’s making these big special effect action flicks, no siree! And get off my lawn! *waves cane in air*
It’s those baciagaloop millenialli who trash-a my movie!
The two main reasons I am beyond excited for this film are 1) Gaga and 2) the fashion. Sounds like I’m in for a treat when I see it after Thanksgiving!
Based on the trailer, their accents are impossible to take seriously. I’m sure they worked hard on them, but good grief, if you’re speaking English instead of Italian anyway just do it without the damn accent.
Imagine The Sopranos with this note.
Have to admit I’ve never watched that!
the trailer made me unintentionally laugh so i’m hoping this is so bad-it’s good.
It’s not going to be. It’s going to be – at worse- mediocre. Ridley Scott is just too skilled to be a “so bad it’s good” director and he’s never had a camp/satirical streak like the Paul Verhoevens of the world.
A bad Ridley Scott film is just boring. I can’t put my finger on it, but there are four bad Ridley Scott films that immediately spring to mind: Prometheus and Alien: Covenant whose major faults were with the story being nonsensical but everything else was so competent that it somehow made it more infuriating. Then there’s Hannibal and Red Dragon which just felt like Scott was going through the motions. There competent films but they’re forgettable and pale in comparison to Silence of the Lambs or even Manhunter
I don’t know. I think his late brother Tony would have knocked this out of the park because he was the Scott sibling who excelled at style over substance (and I mean that as a compliment).
Ridley Scott is just too skilled to be a “so bad it’s good” director and he’s never had a camp/satirical streak like the Paul Verhoevens of the world. That’s a great way of describing Ridley Scott. I also agree about Tony Scott. I wish he had been the director of Black Rain.
Brett Ratner directed Red Dragon
The trailers for this film make this look really bad. I’ve seen a couple of different ones in the theaters and judging by this review the movie is as bad as the trailers make it seem. Too bad, Ridley can’t catch a break lately.
I may be a young kid on my phone(just double checked and it turns out that I’m neither of those things), but at 157 goddamn minutes this sounds interminable and horribly boring.
Bad Romance: The Movie
“WITH JARED LETO AS LUIGI MARIO”
Special effects are all CGI now and practical effects are only used still to make sure older and/or bigger people never get roles. This is a real cool society we’ve got goin’ on here.
Don’t forget accidentally shooting crew members.
Older people who aren’t Al Pacino, anyway. But otherwise, your point stands.
Was weird to see Choupette since Karl’s cat wasn’t born until 2011 and the film only goes til the 90s.
They get hitched anyway, and Patrizia takes to the upper-class Gucci lifestyle like she was born to it.If Gucci isn’t bourgeoisie, than nothing is!
Anyone else notice that a LOT of Oscar bait movies are just biopics? Like a lot.
Saw it on Thanksgiving. I thought Gaga killed it in her role. But I do agree the tonal shifts between scenes with different characters didnt really work.I laughed out loud anytime Pacino and Leto got to ham it up. Their scenes together were hilarious and great. I would have chopped 45 mins off of it. Take that Ridley!
You have got to be kidding me with this review – the film is a camp masterpiece. Fully expecting ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’-level screenings in SF and NYC within a few years.
Just finally got around to watching it this weekend. The accents are indeed horrific, and the movie is way to bad to be two and a half hours long. Pretty much the entire last hour I was just hoping it would hurry up and end.