Film Review: HOUSE OF GUCCI (2021): Ridley Scott’s Film Is Stylish and Well-Acted Though a Bit Overlong

House of Gucci Review

House of Gucci (2021) Film Review, a movie directed by Ridley Scott and starring Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Jared Leto, Jack Huston, Salma Hayek, Alexia Murray, Vincent Riotta, Gaetano Bruno, Camille Cottin, Youssef Kerkour, Reeve Carney, Florence Andrews, Mehdi Nebbou, Miloud Mourad Benamara, Andrea Piedimonte Bodini and Vincenzo Tanassi.

Ridley Scott brings the dramatic soap opera-like antics of the bizarre Gucci family to life in his new film, House of Gucci. While wildly entertaining in the beginning and enormously fascinating in its concluding scenes, there is a long midsection that plods along at a snail’s pace. While an almost two-hour and forty-minute film about the Gucci family seemed like a sure-fire bet to never be boring, the film occasionally gets bogged down in way too much backstory regarding the supporting characters while audiences will most likely want to see more of its hugely appealing leads–Lady Gaga and Adam Driver.

This film focuses on the lives of Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga with dark hair) and the man who was her husband, Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver). As the film opens, Patrizia meets Maurizio and she pushes her way in to his life. There are problems with the film right from the start such as the date attached to the opening of the film which is 1978. It is said Patrizia and Maurizio met several years before that. Anyway, there is a lot of appeal in the way the movie begins. Maurizio is sort of seduced by Patrizia and when he is disowned by his father, Rodolfo (the always terrific Jeremy Irons), Maurizio shows up to profess his love for Patrizia and admits he probably has to start from scratch but that he loves her. Maurizio gets a job working in Patrizia’s family business which is ground-based transportation. These two characters love each other initially but when they get back in to the Gucci fashion empire, all hell will break loose in true Hollywood fashion.

Al Pacino chews scenery as Aldo Gucci who was more or less responsible for bringing Maurizio back in to the family business. When Aldo ends up in jail for tax evasion, the movie takes a sharp turn and starts heading towards disaster for the Gucci family. Pacino is always watchable in this role and has some amazing scenes in the picture that makes him emerge as one of Hollywood’s best actors. Still.

As Paolo Gucci, perhaps the weakest link in the family, Jared Leto is unrecognizable and actually really rather excellent as a bald, overweight bozo who complains about not having basic cable at one point when he pretty much loses his family’s fortune. Paolo basically made a pivotal mistake to his family’s empire by being too competitive for his own good. He cuts his nose off to spite his face. Leto disappears into this rather pathetic character who at one point bizarrely implies that he, at some point in his life, tasted his own feces. Leto and Pacino have some relatively interesting scenes together that, while not entirely necessary, do feature some amazing acting.

Patrizia and Maurizio have a daughter together in the film and the movie unnecessarily shows a scene of them opening Christmas gifts together. While the idea of bringing on screen the game Simon and a Teddy Ruxpin doll is good to declare the time period the movie is set in, the scene basically feels like nothing more than filler.

The drama in the plot unfolds when Maurizio encounters a woman from his past who becomes his lover. Most of the soap opera-like moments take place at a ski resort which hosted a family outing for Maurizio and Patrizia. Let’s not forget Salma Hayek’s role as a fortune teller named Pina Auriemma who is probably the worst friend Patrizia could have ever gotten involved with. That’s all I’ll say on that particular regard.

Lady Gaga is in top form as Patrizia and gives the character a distinct personality and very plausible qualities that lead to her eventual downfall. It’s a cutthroat year for actresses in the movies in terms of securing a Best Actress Oscar nomination and Gaga probably will not get the Oscar nod for this role. Although she would be deserving of a nomination in a lesser year, the role eventually is too one-note for its own good. She’s defined by her eccentric personality and there’s not much depth to her but that doesn’t stop Gaga from trying to add layers to the character which really aren’t there.

Adam Driver is solid as Maurizio although this is far from his best work. Driver is also pigeonholed in to a distinct one-note personality that never truly develops. It’s hard to feel much for his character throughout the movie. Maybe the fact that he cheats on his wife makes him even more unlikable than he was in the beginning of the film. However, despite the leads’ shortcomings, they are the center of the film and I would have rather stayed with them than keep going back to Aldo and Paolo as the film does.

There are a number of hysterical scenes here. My favorite is when Patrizia discovers knock-off Gucci bags being sold on the street and tells Aldo who shrugs it off. There is some fun give-and-take in this scene and it plays extraordinarily well. Even, Gaga gets some laughs with her distinct qualities which are so over-the-top that they become funny at times. Driver plays Maurizio as stiff and that may be a character choice more than a flaw but you can find yourself laughing at Driver’s very rigid personality.

Ridley Scott can do no wrong, however, in terms of his direction of the majority of scenes in the film whether the sequences are absolutely necessary or not. Every scene is fluid but, occasionally, the sheer length of the film simply weighs down the material.

It may sound like I didn’t like this film but I did despite its several problems. I particularly liked the way Patrizia developed from a hopeless romantic to a woman bent on revenge. The characterization doesn’t change much throughout the film but the overall shift to another completely different type of woman is expertly conveyed by Gaga. The movie is also remarkably photographed bringing the Gucci brand to life through the characters behind it and their surroundings.

House of Gucci is nothing less than a “crime doesn’t pay” story with some fine performances. How moved one is by the film depends on how much one relates to the main characters. Both leads are one-dimensional characters going through internal changes that are never really conveyed one hundred percent satisfactorily on screen but with Oscar-nominated talent such as Gaga and Driver at the film’s center, it remains a film worth seeing thanks in large part to Ridley Scott’s skillful direction. Jared Leto could pull off a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination as well.

Rating: 7/10

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