House Of Gucci

“I am the most Gucci of them all” said Patrizia Reggiani in a 2014 interview. Looking at this comically exaggerated, extremely dramatic tragedy, one understands her. She has been referred to as ‘Lady Gucci’ and ‘Black Widow,’ but Reggiani was, during the 1990s, at the center of a stink involving passion, greed, glamour, and yes, murder and a psychic. To that trashy mix, Ridley Scott’s latest “true story” adaptation enhances the glam factor, casting pop superstar Lady Gaga, who was recently nominated for an Oscar for her leading role in A Star Is Born, who relished playing a woman with ‘her’ vicious allure.

The screenwriters’ Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna based their work on the non-fiction book authored by Sara Gay Forden. House of Gucci reveals drama which had its inception amidst the parties held in Milan in late 1970s as the events progressed towards a court case at the turn of the 1990s. Together with the storyline, actors play a crucial role so does the fascinating story that revolved around the interaction of characters: a renowned American fashion designer Adam Driver, the character of the southern Italian Losa Gucci, and her grandson Maurizio Gucci.

“I want to see how this story goes,” says Patrizia with the resolve to seek and marry the grandson of Guccio Gucci to live her dreams charmingly knit around love ballets, midnight poetics and hollowed pumpkins, familial relationships, and escalated moments of hostile rage.

In the early stages, it appears to have been very romantic, the stage where Patrizia is seen inscribing her telephone contact on Maurizio’s scooter with lipstick. It is a captivating scenario: living in the space nodes of culture, he rides a dorky bike while dizzy with wealth, she whines her head as though on a tightrope. She might not appreciate painting from Klimt to Picasso, but she possesses ambition that could be better placed as heady in a more upscale manner than that of Nomi from the famous Showgirls by Paul Verhoeven.

This is definitely the view that Jeremy Irons’s sinister Rodolfo has, when he throws his own son out of the house for marrying into a family of “trucks drivers!” Whoopee! Sly Uncle Aldo (Al Pacino) is less disgusted and becomes captivated by Patrizia’s brassy lures and enables her and his nephew to sink their claws into the fashion house which he shares with his brother. One moment, Patrizia is the daughter of a truck business tycoon, the next she turns to Lady Macbeth getting ready for the hunt: “Time to take out the trash.”

As fast as the pace is, so it is the progression moving from a joyful family union to absolute chaos, the melodrama has Cockney subtitles a la virage: “I’m sure Maurizio would love your strudel, Ethel” announcing Thespian pivot of the action from Patrizia to Paola (Call My Agent’s Camille Cottin). There is the whole shadow of The Godfather waiting in the wings, the guiding principles for more or less everything, from an outdoors rustic dinner with Pacino in attendance to scenes showing violent acts intercut with one’s immersion into the water, only the water here was from the bathtub, not the holy water.

Now we’ve got Jared Leto, an actor who has recently taken to never holding back his excitement in front of the camera. In the film, Paolo, Aldo’s moronic son, seems to only want to draw attention to himself and his award wins. After making it through the entire theatricalize session, Leto makes his first entrance on stage looking like an over the top model, distorted in a montage of plush suits and fat.

With regard to his voice, others have only the slight Italian accent, Leto speaks as though addressing whales with a succession of high-pitched sounds. Only Pacino seems to be able to contest reed Leto’s comical performative presence. In later scenes in which the two actors are together in later scenes, they look utterly pathetic, like something out of a Neapolitan version of little Britain.

In a fashion that is typical of Scott’s 2017 Getty family drama All the Money in the World, House of Gucci succeeds in capturing the particular temporal setting, the most recent history dominating the orange and brown color scheme for cigarette and coffee colors, and the moments of bold black and white photography. The music is a definite eye-roller though; Everyone from Pavarotti to Tracy Chapman to Caterina Caselli and Blondie are in a mix and a wedding is enjoyed with the song ‘Faith’ by George Michael in the background.

People looking forward to a Mommie Dearest – style camp fest as per the trailer will be in for a disappointment; House of Gucci is, for better or worse, just a bit too ‘nice’ to acquire cult status. Although this is not the case, Gaga deserves a gong for staying focused through the lunacy – for the richer, not the poorer; in gaudiness and in degree.

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