Tales of family strife and gamesmanship currently dominate the entertainment landscape from the just ended Game of Thrones HBO series to Ozark to Succession to Yellowstone. Audiences love to see stories about how greed and business dealings affect family dynamics and the drama that unfolds as a result. What could be better than fictional tales of these high stakes chess matches than one steeped in reality? The latest film from legendary director Ridley Scott attempts to cash in on this genre trend.
House of Gucci seeks to tell the tale of the second and third generations of the Italian fashion family, beginning with Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga), an outsider from humble beginnings, who marries into the Gucci family through Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) son of Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons). Patrizia’s unbridled ambition soon begins to unravel the family legacy and sets her and her husband against his uncle Aldo (Al Pacino) and cousin Paolo (Jared Leto).
House of Gucci plays like a campy version of Lady Macbeth centered in the fashion world of the last half of the 20th century with the film’s production design, costuming, and hair and makeup capture the time period accurately allowing the world to feel real and more immersive. While there is a good tale of ambition, love, betrayal, and legacy in its Shakespearean tinged story, the final product ultimately ends up feeling uneven due to the silly and goofy moments intertwined with the family drama. Much of this discrepancy and unevenness in tone can be traced to specific performances within the film’s cast, namely Jared Leto’s portrayal of Gucci cousin Paolo. Leto plays the character in a very campy way despite the integral part his story plays in the drama of it all, particularly the character development of Patrizia and Maurizio. The business dealings between the family members reveals a lot about who the married couple are, and who they will develop into over the course of the film, but the emotional impact of resonance of how their triangular relationship plays out is undercut by the caricature that Leto and Scott create of the bumbling, Fredo Corleone type cousin. Leto and his performance will unfortunately be made the face of all that is wrong with House of Gucci due to his encapsulation of its issues in one easy to spot person. Despite how easy it is to make him the face of the problem, the directorial choices are clearly the most glaring issue.
House of Gucci is filled to the brim with popular music choices within its soundtrack that fit each era we visit within the story and sometimes even those sonic choices undercut the tension and make scenes feel comedic rather than dramatic. One such instance is during a scene when law enforcement raids the home of Patrizia and Maurizio as The Barber of Seville (Overture) plays over the scrambling characters onscreen. A scene that substantively doesn’t contain much humor nonetheless comes across as funny due to the choice to set it to music that has commonly been used in Looney Toons episodes. The scene and choice made in crafting it drives home where the film went wrong.
Despite the missteps, not all of House of Gucci is bad or irredeemable. Lady Gaga’s performance as Patrizia is one of the film’s saving graces and if all the actors had followed in the footsteps of her dramatic portrayal you’d be reading a completely different review right now. Gaga is able to fully capture a young woman from humble beginnings who slowly succumbs to ambition, greed, and the changes that come from longterm luxury and wealth, depicting her character’s journey effectively. Jack Huston, who plays former Gucci America CEO Domenico De Sole, also provided the film with another quality dramatic performance that provided it with its gravitas in the first two acts.
While the film’s third act finally settles on a more serious tone that provides the proper weight for the saga of the Gucci family, the late course correction does little to rectify the rollercoaster that is House of Gucci’s first two acts that are an inconsistent mishmash of camp and dramedy. Much has been said about how half of the ensemble seems to be acting in one type of film while the other half acts in another, and sadly, those reports are not exaggerated. Lady Gaga tries her best to keep the film on the right course with assistance from castmate Jack Huston, but the disparate direction from Ridley Scott is too much to overcome.
Image: MGM Studios
