House of Gucci

Ridley Scott, who was 84 in November this year, will give absolutely zero shits if I didn't think much of a film of his. He has over 50 feature directing credits to his name, with a couple of the best films ever made under his belt. He is a dead set master. But, in saying all that, he has the odd average delivery in his arsenal. There are wicket taking balls, definitely. and there are some half-trackers to be put away over the mid on fence. But House of Gucci is simply a dot ball. It doesn't excite but it also isn't awful.

The film is a biopic of the Gucci fashion house, centring on Partizia Reggiani, the wife of the head of the company, Maurizio Gucci. They're played by Lady Gaga and Adam Driver, and this relationship is the focus of the movie. Many folk will know what happened to the main players in reality, so I'll leave all that alone. I feel the film is let down by bog standard plotting, there's nothing imaginative going on. Maybe the writers - Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna - were constrained by the historical details outlined in the book by Sara Gay Forden. Also, it's very hard to warm to any of these characters (with the possible exception of Jared Leto's Paolo Gucci, but that's closer to pity).

Sir Ridders has a steady rein on the structure (though it could be trimmer) but he seems to be letting his cast run riot, save for Driver, who is the most calm and mannered. Leto, Gaga, Al Pacino and Salma Hayek, all dial it up to eleventy fuckkles. Leto is at least having fun with his down-trodden, wannabe designer, even if he seem like he's in another film to the rest of the cast. Oddly, he likens his testicles to (at least) two different types of fruit. His performance actually reminded me of a halfway meeting of Roberto Benigni in Down by Law, and Jim Broadbent in the Blackadder episode, 'The Queen of Spain's Beard'. Especially when he says things like, "I will flyyyy....like a peeeegion." Apart from Leto's full-bodied prose, the dialogue is fairly trite. Try these on - "Gucci needs new blood. It's time to take out the trash." OR "You picked a real firecracker." followed by "She's a handful." Not the most original.

The veracity of events covered in the film have been called into question by Tom Ford (played weakly in the film by Reeve Carney - no, me neither) and several surviving members of the Gucci clan, which goes to show you can't please everybody. But look, if you're keen on fashion, 'true-crime' and melodrama, this might fit your parameters. 

House of Gucci opens in cinemas on New Years' Day.

See also:

Adam Driver was in another, better, Ridley Scott film this year, The Last Duel. Paul Thomas Anderson's The Phantom Thread (2017) is only tangentially similar, but weirdly great.

(Film stills and trailer ©Universal, 2021)