Review: ‘House of Gucci’
There’s a scene in Ridley Scott‘s House of Gucci where Patrizia Reggiani, played by Lady Gaga, calls up a psychic she’s watching on TV. “Will I get what I want?” she wryly asks, knowing glint in her eyes. “You didn’t specify what you want,” comes the psychic’s frustrated reply. “But I know what you want,” she tells her. “You want everything.”
This is the conundrum Scott, who both directed and is releasing two films within a year, finds himself in. Unlike The Last Duel, his other film released this year, which was a focused historical epic that knew exactly what its lane was and firmly stuck to it, Scott wants House of Gucci to simultaneously be everything. A crime caper, a family drama, a character study, and a satire all at once. By the end of the film, however, Scott stretches himself (and his cast) way too thin and as a result, House of Gucci ends up amounting to a tonally inconsistent, tedious mess of a film that, despite some moments of brilliance, will mostly leave audiences confused and bewildered.
House of Gucci (supposedly) centers on Patrizia Reggiani (Gaga), a young Italian woman working for her father’s company who comes across Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) at a party one fateful evening. Intrigued by his last name, Patrizia strikes up a relationship with the shy and awkward Maurizio, eventually marrying him and embedding herself firmly in his family, much to his father’s objections. After the death of Maurizio’s father, Patrizia sees his absence as an opportunity for Maurizio (and herself by proxy) to take over the Gucci brand and business, and she does so with gusto, playing everyone around her, including Maurizio’s uncle Aldo (Al Pacino) and cousin Paolo (Jared Leto), like puppets on a string. When Maurizio finally discovers what’s been transpiring, he decides to divorce Patrizia, a fateful decision that ends with tragic results.
Lady Gaga, who the film’s marketing would have you believe is the film’s main focal point, is absolutely sublime as the cunning and enigmatic Patrizia, who expertly weaves her way into the Gucci family dynamic. She commands the screen with a confident, assured presence that is both graceful and aggressive. She manages to capture both sides of Patrizia; the sharp, manipulative Lady Macbeth-esque matriarch who led her husband to great success and the hurt, vindictive woman who took it all away from him. Unfortunately, and despite Gaga’s best efforts to humanize her, the character is far too underwritten in the script, with screenwriters Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna never even attempting to discover what makes her tick, instead choosing to focus on the Gucci family dynamic – which is where the film stumbles into a major pitfall.
Instead of following Patrizia as she comes to a decision that will change the lives of everyone around her, Scott (and the film’s screenwriters) frustratingly choose to abandon her in the film’s third act, instead focusing on Maurizio’s power struggles as he comes to take over the Gucci family business. Interesting as these power politics may be, it can’t help but feel like betrayal to both Gaga’s wonderful performance and the audience, who have been mostly led to believe that this is a film that revolves around Patrizia. It also doesn’t help that Maurizio just isn’t interesting enough of a character to justify the amount of screentime he (solely) ends up getting. Driver turns in a layered, nuanced performance as Maurizio, expertly charting his journey from unambitious young man to career-driven business tycoon, but even he can’t justify the film’s sudden narrative switch over halfway through.
Elsewhere, Pacino turns in a charismatic performance as Aldo Gucci, who has the rug firmly swept from under him by Patrizia and Maurizio, while Salma Hayek is an absolute delight to watch as Patrizia’s trusted psychic Pina, although she is severely underused throughout the course of the film’s 157-minute runtime. Much has been made about Jared Leto‘s performance in the film; he “spent hours in the make-up chair” to become physically transformed into the naive and witless Paolo, who is the source of many of the Gucci family problems. However, with his shrill voice, cartoonish delivery and inconsistent attempt at an Italian accent, he ends up delivering a grating mess of a performance that feels like it’s from another, less serious film, which only ends up adding to House of Gucci‘s tonal inconsistencies.
House of Gucci tries to have its cake and eat it too. But with too many ingredients and too may cooks in the kitchen, it’s an overbaked, overwrought mess of a film that is still worth watching, if only for Lady Gaga’s dynamic performance as Patrizia Reggiani.
Rating: 3/5
House of Gucci will be released in theaters in the US on November 24 and in the UK on November 26.