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House of Gucci
(MGM/United Artists Releasing)
By Lucas Allen
With Oscar season already underway, there are already plenty of interesting titles that are generating some early buzz thanks in part to the great work of the actors. One of them is the crime drama “House of Gucci,” which is based on a true account during a crucial period in the history of the highly successful Gucci fashion line. The movie is directed by Oscar-nominated director Ridley Scott, who already had previous critical acclaim earlier this fall with the medieval drama “The Last Duel.”
Working for her father’s trucking business, Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) meets Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) at a party and is instantly smitten with him. Although he went to school to become a lawyer, Maurizio is still part of a family dynasty running the fashion business. Much to the disapproval of Maurizio’s sickly father, Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons), he and Patrizia soon get married to start a new life. That is, until they get invited by his uncle Aldo (Al Pacino) to New York City, where he’s the head of the fashion line. Meanwhile, Aldo’s son Paolo (Jared Leto) wants to bring his original designs to the company, but is shockingly rejected by both his father and uncle Rodolfo.
After Rodolfo’s death, things begin to unravel for the family and the good name of Gucci. Patrizia soon manipulates with her husband to put Aldo and Paolo against each other, leading to Maurizio to take control of the company. However, her increasingly controlling behavior has Maurizio deciding to distance himself from his relationship to focus more on the business at hand. Sadden and hurt, Patrizia then teams up with a local psychic (Salma Hayek) to find a way to get her revenge, which leads to a tragic climax.
The story itself would make for one of those true crime docuseries you see on Netflix or a television miniseries that go into plenty of detail on the real-life people and motivations involved. But for a two-and-a-half-hour movie, this one felt less complete and hardly anything was accomplished. The pacing is all over the place with the movie going through the timeline as quickly as possible without giving much indication what year each of the scenes were supposed to take place. Important events felt meshed together without any breathing room for the audience to adjust. It’s possible there were more scenes that could’ve made the pacing better, but it may or may not make the movie better.
The movie obviously took some liberties with the true story, but the bigger problem is the way it portrays its real-life characters. Imagine “The Godfather”and its character depictions on steroids, and you get a film full of Italian stereotypes and caricatures that’s already an outdated cliché. The biggest offender is Leto under all those prosthetics and sounding like Nintendo’s Mario going into Princess Peach’s fashion design. It’s another example of the Oscar-winning actor trying too hard to stay relevant, while a respectable director like Ridley Scott have seen better days.
Gaga certainly disappears in a very fierce performance that’ll likely earn her a Best Actress nomination, but her character was written so two-dimensionally that it doesn’t matter. Driver’s performance works as being the straight man to the main cast’s comical personas and has some good moments of his own. Besides Leto, Pacino is acting like if Michael Corleone gave up being a Mafioso and went into show business, but the veteran actor remains watchable with his usual traits. As for the smaller parts, Irons isn’t bad, while Hayek doesn’t add much to a character that could’ve been taken out of the movie.
There’s a gem of a good movie underneath it all, but “House of Gucci” is another case of a film trying to bait Oscar voters only to end up looking foolish. Between the questionable writing and the over-the-top performances, this crime drama becomes a campy soap opera meant for the bad movie lover.
THE MOVIE’S RATING: R (for language, some sexual content and brief nudity, and violence)
THE CRITIC’S RATING: 2 Stars (Out of Four)
