House of Gucci

"House of Gucci" is a beautifully shot picture with great people involved. It is somewhat underwhelming and a tad too long, but there are great moments sprinkled throughout the movie.

The film is based on the real murder of Maurizio Gucci and the downfall of the Gucci family. It all begins when Patrizia Reggiani marries into the Gucci family and the rest is history.

Lady Gaga is great as the ambitious Patrizia Reggiani but she is also inconsistent with her performance. Pacino, Driver and Leto are good per usual. It is however a daring choice by the filmmakers to have the actors speak in English with an Italian accent. It is not a huge problem, but it does occasionally take the viewer out of the experience.

The first forty minutes of the movie are great. The characters are well introduced, and the plot is intriguing. The rest of the movie does not maintain this standard. The last 30 minutes are beyond underwhelming and the climax is cold and emotionless.

There are issues with "House of Gucci" but the production design is not one of them. The film is beautifully shot and the locations look great. "House of Gucci" is very stylish and the costume department really outdid themselves.

With everything said, "House of Gucci" is a decent film with outstanding visuals and great acting. If you like fashion, then you should give this movie a watch. It is beautiful and quite enjoyable despite its excessive runtime.

As I'm on holiday at the moment in Portugal, this was seen as "Casa de Gucci". But the soundtrack was English with Portuguese subtitles. At least, I *think* it was English!

Positives:

• Other than the bare outlines, it's a story I knew nothing about, so it made for interesting viewing. And who doesn't want to see some escapist high-fashion, flashy cars and Italian high-living on the big screen?

• Adam Driver delivers another stonking performance. He delivers the best of the accents on show and is a delight to watch whenever he's on screen. His performance is deliciously subtle and under-played. A model for acting lessons.

• Al Pacino, in full-on Pacino mode, is also great as Maurizio's uncle: owner of the other half of the empire.

Negatives:

• The accents! Where do I begin? I felt a desperate need mid-film to order a Cornetto and go compare my car insurance online. While Driver and Pacino tend to rein it in, most of the rest of the cast assume accents approaching a bad parody of Italians. Jared Leto and Gaga are particularly guilty.

• I appreciate that the part of the "idiot" Paolo Gucci was meant to be comedic, but Jared Leto seems to almost be in a different film entirely. There's 'over-the-top' and 'waaaaay over-the-top'.

• I've seen some other reviews praising Lady Gaga... saying that it proves her performance in "A Star is Born" wasn't just a "flash in the pan". Personally, I didn't feel it. I appreciate that the character of Patrizia is a larger-than-life one. But, although she did have some impressive scenes, for most of her performance I felt like she was obviously acting, and sometimes over-acting. The accent didn't help.

• The film has a banging set of tunes, no argument. But for a sprawling drama told over a few decades (the film is nearly 160 minutes long!), music should be used to anchor the movie as to which year you are currently in. Donna Summer "I Feel Love": so it must be 1977. But the movie doesn't consistently follow that rule. It's the early 70's, but suddenly George Michael's "Faith" blares out. #Unsettling.

• This may be my lack of concentration, but there seems to be an assertion in the film (presumably completely false) that Aldo Gucci was supporting/producing knockoff Gucci products for the mass-market: a "lucrative product line" that was later canned by Maurizio. I was personally confused by this bit of the story.

Summary Thoughts on "House of Gucci": This was not the <2* bust that I thought it might be from early word I saw from other reviews. The fact that it turns out to be a 158 minute film surprised me, since it felt long... but not that long. So that's a good thing. And it has its moments for sure. But this is not a movie that I will be in a hurry to revisit, since the accents and some of the performances (Jared Leto - take one step forwards) are not ones that I thought worthy of the potential that the movie had. For me, Ridley, I'll take "The Last Duel" any day.

(For the full graphical review, check out #onemannsmovies online. Thanks.)

House of Gucci is probably the most stylish film of 2021, it looked awesome, this was beautifully made, the quality of production and direction is phenomenal. It isn't just style over substance though, it's well made, generally well acted, it tells a fascinating and twisted story.

The main issue about this film for me, was the pacing, it was somewhat uneven, at times it felt frustratingly slow, fortunately it did pick up at its conclusion. The running time was overlong, what is it with films in 2021? Why the need for everything to be almost three hours? Is there some deal for cost per minute at cinemas? Ninety minute films work too.

If you ever think your family has problems, just watch this, and you'll see what family problems really are. Scandal, betrayal and murder, it's a rags to riches story with a twist.

The acting, for the most part I thought it was great, Jeremy Irons was the standout for me, as he so often is, but Lady Gaga was awesome as Patrizia, she did a great job. Adam Driver on the other hand, I'm not sure why, but I felt as though he was a little uninterested, perhaps a little bored?

6/10.

There were quite a number of reasons for wanting to see 'House of Gucci'. The advertising did intrigue and did suggest a film that would be over the top but entertaining in its own way. Ridley Scott's filmography is hit and miss, brilliant at his best like with 'Alien' and 'Blade Runner' though some of his films, such as 'GI Jane' and 'Robin Hood' ('Legend' is underrated in my view), are not too great. The main draw though was the cast, with Lady Gaga (an immensely gifted performer and inspirational person) being a big selling point for many.

For me though, bigger selling points were seeing two of my favourite actors Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons again (and reunited after 'A Merchant in Venice'). Jared Leto has always been very take and leave. 'House of Gucci' turned out to be one of those difficult to rate and review sort of films for me, it is going to be one of those films that some are going to love and others are going to hate (with some in between). It is a hugely flawed film, but there was also a lot to enjoy at the same time. As far as Scott's films go, it's a middling effort. Neither one of his best or worst.

'House of Gucci' has a lot that is good in my view. Have very little to complain about when it comes to how it looks, apart from some editing being in need of a tightening in the final act. The Italian scenery and the costumes are truly stunning though and the camerawork is similarly sumptuous. Scott's direction is uneven dramatically but is very impressive on a technical level, especially in his use of multiple cameras (which must make it easy for actors to know where to look). The soundtrack is also wonderful and beautifully operatic in scope, though not always well placed, but from a standalone point of view there are no complaints here.

Despite the very all over the place accents, with a mix of exaggerated (Leto, to almost cartoonish effect in his case) or barely there (Irons, am a huge fan of Irons but will never deny about accents not being a forte of his), most of the acting is fine. Lady Gaga kills it as Patrizia, who is a very interesting and well fleshed out character here, bringing charm, effortless charisma and menace to her. It has been said that her accent isn't great, as far as the cast goes it's actually the most convincing one along with Salma Hayek's. Adam Driver is a good deal more understated, one of the few in the cast to play it very straight, but he is also compelling and his character growth/decent is believable. They have great chemistry together.

The supporting cast on the whole support them well, Pacino coming off best having a whale of a time as Aldo. Irons brings vulnerability and authority to patriarch Rodolfo and Salma Hayek gives some of her best acting in years. Really liked the chemistry on the whole, Lady Gaga and Driver are great together as are Lady Gaga and Hayek, while that between Irons and Pacino is a joy. 'House of Gucci' does have a few great individual scenes, and one of the best is the magnificent encounter between Irons and Pacino. Personally thought the first half was fine and that it set up the intrigue and characters extremely well. As well as a few funny moments, Rodolfo's verbal brutalising of Paolo was gold and sums up the viewer's opinion of him and his work perfectly.

On the other hand, 'House of Gucci' has a number of shortcomings. One performance didn't work for me and that was Leto. Unrecognisable in much talked about(the talk of social media when advertising was first revealed) makeup that deserves its own film, he overplays his role, especially when the comic relief becomes more dominant, and belongs in a completely different film. Yes the film is very over the top in tone, but Leto's performance veered on excess and too much of a Super Mario Brothers caricature. There are pacing issues, the rather underdeveloped family business stuff drags, sometimes to the point of stalling, due to the lack of tension and gravitas that was not there enough. And other parts come over as very choppy and incomplete feeling, like the final act. The second half needed a tightening up, which would have made the film less overlong (and it is a film that could have been 25 minutes shorter easily).

Also found the ending very rushed and anti-climactic, handled with too much of an indifferent shrug. After spending so long on the family stuff (and not developing that enough) and the increasingly uneasy spurts of comedy, the event that caused such a sensation is just too throwaway in treatment. Tonally, 'House of Gucci' is messy, the comedy going for the campy approach that goes too far into pantomime in the second half and some of the serious moments being too melodramatic. Tonal shifts can be uneasily abrupt.

The script has some funny and intriguing moments, but is on the whole too overwritten in tone (Leto's comedy increasingly gets too much), bland emotionally (the descent into revenge is not examined enough) and also too much of a trying to include as many iconic lines as possible. Some of the line delivery has to be heard to be believed, can imagine right now the amount of reaction gifs online in regard to some of the more comedic lines and Leto's body language.

Concluding, hugely flawed but also quite fun when taking it for what it is. 5.5/10 (was struggling which score of 5 or 6 to give it but decided to go in between and round it up)

A film so out of its mind that it is operating entirely on impulses, House of Gucci makes for a wild, inconsistent & unabashedly over-the-top biographical crime drama that chronicles the downfall of the Gucci family dynasty without any intent or interest and is surprisingly fuelled by absolutely unhinged performances, each functioning on a separate wavelength and pointed in a different direction.

Directed by Ridley Scott, this tonal nightmare plays out like an (un)intentional parody of the Oscar-bait biopics and is far from the quality of work we expect from the filmmaker at helm. All its elements are at odds with each other, thus resulting in a film so bonkers & unpredictable in its approach & execution that it actually piques the curiosity in a way that's not just unusual or unexpected but also nonsensical.

However, a story treatment this uneven & erratic can only carry on for a while before the appeal goes away and this one goes on for 157 long minutes, all of which is tediously paced. The characters themselves are mere caricatures and the ensemble cast is given the license to render them as such. But none of the actors are ever on the same level or looking for any kind of harmony even when sharing screen together.

Overall, House of Gucci is inarguably the "so bad it's good" film of the year. Laced with irony, drowning in decadence and incongruous in each n every aspect, this overlong & overbearing train-wreck suffers from issues of its own makings and despite boasting an A-list ensemble, it doesn't utilise a shred of their talents. Inadvertently hilarious & downright mediocre, Ridley Scott's latest is what happens when the entire cast n crew is left unsupervised & goes amok.