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Something promising happens within the third act of House of Gucci, an otherwise overcalculated and uninteresting two hour and forty-minute mess. As the walls close in on Gaga’s Patrizia Reggiani, her estranged lover Maurizio Gucci, the heir to the throne played by Adam Driver starts seeing major success after taking the helm of the once relevant company.
Without warning, and seemingly within just a few scenes of each other, two real world fashion icons are properly brought to life, media mogul Anna Wintour whose iteration of Vogue magazine helped re-legitimize Gucci and another being, even more significant. Maurizio needs a new lead designer, one talented enough to appease a new group of Iraqi investors, but not yet influential enough to already have his own line. The film coyly teases the sketches from a designer that the Gucci team has located in the American South. It’s Tom Ford, then an unknown dreamer from Austin who had done little but work for Perry Ellis. His ready-to-wear women’s line would takeover Gucci and revive the brand as one of the premier fashion houses in the 90's. It’s the first time in the film that tertiary influences on the Gucci empire like Lagerfeld, Versace, Armani, Sophia Loren, the later work of Yves Saint Laurent, contentious Asian markets, and Richard Avedeon (whose photoshoot is intercut with Tom Ford’s introduction) become more than just a mention or a lookalike glimpse. They turn the film into a snapshot of 90’s fashion, culture, and industry.
This is the movie we deserved. No, not a Tom Ford biopic. House of Gucci needed to look outside the Gucci family in order to contextualize its return amidst a rapidly transforming world of couture. Rivalries, legal battles, and corporate politics take a backseat to a soap opera, one whose depth relies heavily on emotional sensation with little to no setup: family squabbles and infighting are given with little explanation, an outrageous sex scene justifies a marriage, and character development is backseated for what is intended to be high energy, fast paced film making.
Nobody thought any of this was going to be good cinema, and a knowingly self-aware badness seemed to be communicated all the way up to marketing materials. Regardless, the high-profile casting of major stars and a veteran screen director has given the film its much needed critical divide, with some taking the route of labelling it as more than just a giant stinking pile of monogram canvas. Some are calling it a nimbly accomplished deep dive into the world of camp; others say it should justify a major diplomatic incident.
I call it missing the mark. Everything about the film internally and meta-physically, seems to posit its story as an empire of Clowns who want to be Kings. The film fails in that its royalty has not been presented as particularly cherished, and its clowns don’t actually take pies to the face. Even with Jared Leto enclosed in rubber and an entire Museum of archival pieces recreated for the film, it is simply not outrageous enough. Initially, we were promised a Scorsesean dumpster fire, that’s over-bloated-ness was insured by its level of camp. Unfortunately, the movie does not succeed on this level either. We should have been plied with images of obscene wealth. I’m talking helicopters, yachts, Italian sports cars in every shot…fuck inside even, crazier outfits, cocaine…where the hell was the cocaine? I mean look at the cake they served Al Pacino for his 70th birthday scene, circular, single level and covered in maraschino cherries. The Guccis are from Italy, this food should have looked like the breath of a child would cause it to collapse.
One must be forced to think that direct involvement from the brand would stop the story from becoming as defamatory as we would have liked it to have been. Evil should have been tied to corporate greed instead of adultery and ambition.
A lot of people will see this film, and a lot of people are going to like it. Markets in China give little to no fucks about things like story and just want to stare at double G logos while they point at the screen and remark at the 42nd Street knockoff scene. You’ll probably see it to, either when your girlfriend or girlfriends drag you to the theatre, or you go compulsively to stare at a movie that’s so bad it has to be good. Fuck man, I went on opening day at noon, when the theatre was practically empty. I had to see it.
So in spirit of a different movie set in Mexico starring Americans that is ultimately nine times more Italian, here is The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on House of Gucci.
A mainstay on the Ridley Scott artistic team since Gladiator, designer Janty Yates was given a costume-makers dream playground in House of Gucci.
Though given unprecedented full access to house archives for research purposes, only two physical historic pieces made it into the film:
Gaga’s Double G tunic and trousers worn for the scene in which she investigates replicas on 42nd Street and her Silk Blouse and Leather Skirt when she is served with divorce papers.
Other than these items, Yates designed her own looks to convey the power and embellishment of the Gucci brand. Those who wanted looks including the consignment market which has seen vintage Gucci catapult in value in the leadup to the film’s release, got what they came for.
It is jacked. Velvet suits, corduroy suits, Boucheron and Bulgari jewelry pieces, Pikkio from Rome, Giuseppe and Massimiliano, two-piece logo sets, bamboo handles.
The Fifties Constance bag designed for Jackie Onassis makes an appearance, as do the Buttercream yellow horsebit loafers which Aldo Gucci uses as capital to finalize a deal with the Iraqis. It’s period accurate as well, with Reggiani decked out in 70’s YSL and Rodolfo’s iconic scarves designed for Grace Kelly and Sophia Loren receiving authentic replication. Gaga, a renowned fashion wizard lent ideas of her own to the film’s fashion, including wearing a trench coat inside out in a frame since gone viral.
The major selling point of the film aside from Gaga, I could go on…fourteen suits were made for Al Pacino. The issue here is that this movie wants to be The Godfather, when clearly it should have been Casino.
What a missed opportunity. Don’t get it twisted, I’m not here to tell you that the music in House of Gucci was by any means bad, the way it was used was deplorable. Set across a few prime eras in analog pop music beginning at the discotheque and ending midway through the nineties, House of Gucci has no excuse here. A girl group doo-wop number opens the film, promising an allegiance to Scorsese, but instead coming off as a watered-down American Hustle.
Long stretches mundanely move without the help of a dramatic score. Three Donna Summer songs in a row defeat the purpose of disco. The gotcha needle drop of George Michael’s rockabilly tribute “Faith” teased by cathedral organs during the wedding scene, makes utterly no sense, and not just because the scene set in 1972 is using something made from 1987; “Faith” isn’t about marriage, it’s about the consequences of casual sex…real wedding altar material. Even the immortal “Heart of Glass,” which likely cost the production an arm and a leg, receiving front and centre placement for the film’s theatrical trailer, was reduced as a backing track for Jared Leto’s interrupted phone call. Are you serious?
The film ends with a duet between Tracy Chapman and Luciano Pavarotti, signalling the last nail in the Americanization of the sacred Italian brand but this sacrifices any final mode of the film’s explosive style, instead ending it somberly if not abruptly.
The link that seems to ensure the film from an all-out critical tar-and-feathering or box office bomb is the magnetic Lady Gaga and not just in her fiercely loyal fanbase who won’t let the quality of the film impede on a starring role in a marquee blockbuster. Gaga’s performance of the sadly under-realized Reggiani lights up the screen every time she is given a chance to sizzle.
As the woman who the Italian paparazzi captured as “the Black Widow,” Gaga had to work her full and unconventional range here, developing a character despicable enough to fear, but human enough to watch. She is seductive and conclusive, manic and emotional, sociopathic and vindictive, and somehow playing both the leading woman and the primary antagonist.
Not shy about her process, Gaga spent three years in preparation to play Reggiani, nine months of which using an accent. She studied the habits of housecats, foxes, and panthers to understand survival instinct.
The performance hasn’t come without its controversies. Oddly enough, Gaga did not meet with the real Reggiani, in order to ensure she would not be colluding in the glorification of her crimes. Many have criticized Gaga’s accent considering it to be inconsistent or inaccurate. Salma Hayek’s dialect coach on the production claimed it had more in common with Russian than it did with Italian. Though, it is a lack of development that provides the largest detriment to the performance, more than any vocal decision.
Reggiani’s intentions seem to be everchanging, no proper scene was written to explain her agenda or even show affection to her daughter – which is supposed to be her emotional fuel through the latter half of the film. It's not so much a shame as it might be a letdown for some, since Kristen Stewart’s outer-body Diana was the better performance. Still, notifying the press that you spent 18 months in character screams “I want a real Oscar.”
To be totally fair, decorated thespian Jeremy Irons likely didn’t give two shits about being in this movie and it would be safe to bet that fifty years as a respected actor likely cued him it in turn did not give two shits about his character.
Playing Rodolfo Gucci, the disapproving failed actor father of Adam Driver’s Maurizio who inherited the company from founder Guccio, it was as if Irons was given a character that practically anyone could have played. I am convinced his contract stated that he his character was playing a parlour game in which contestants were instructed to guess when and if he was using an Italian accent or not. Oftentimes, Irons played the ESL Rodolfo with perfect diction, adding in the odd “how do you say?” as if his character had trouble speaking.
When asked to act ill, Irons appeared more or less mobile, happier than he had been in the entire film with large racoon rings drawn around his eyes. In the next scene he is dead. Hate to say it, but an Italian screen veteran would have been nice.
Releasing two movies within two months is difficult to do at the top of your game let alone at the end of your career. Keep in mind that Soderbergh and Zemeckis who achieved the feat at their peaks shot smaller films as production paused for bigger ones. Ridley Scott on the other hand, an 83-year-old man who likely requires half a full day’s sleep has released two large productions adding The Last Duel which came out in September. Haven’t seen it? You’re in the majority. The film, starring a much-in-need-of-a-career-revival Matt Damon, grossed $28.9 million at the box office off of a $100 million budget. Round 2 comes with what is sure to be higher returns in the Gaga-fronted House of Gucci, a film Scott has been trying to get made since 2006.
Now 15 years later and 14 removed from American Gangster, Scott resembles a much less invested director with a far weaker batting average: Alien: Covenant, All the Money in the World, Exodus: Gods and Kings, Robin Hood, Body of Lies, The Counselor… only The Martian to show for it, what happened?
House of Gucci is no comeback. The director once known for helming striking visuals has taken the story meant to be beaming with colour and energy and shoots it drab, grey, faded, and bleak. Scenes set on snowy mountains appear to lack natural light. The streets of Italy are without colour.
Narratively the film glazes over what might have been the most gripping material, jumping over courtroom scenes to sentencing. Goodfellas-esque text card epilogues posit more interesting story lines than what made it into the film. Do you mean to tell me we’re going to bring Jared Leto in to do mindless backflips and not let him transform into Paolo dying from hepatitis in the streets of London in 1995? What the fuck Ridley? I guarantee you he’s madder than I am.
Scott considered having his daughter direct the film with Penelope Cruz in the lead after he first considered helming with Angelina Jolie and Leonardo DiCaprio as potential castings. It was then reported by The Guardian in 2016 that esteemed Hong Kong cinema icon Wong-Kar Wai would be taking on the film as his return project with Margot Robie and Big Short writer Charles Randolph taking on the script. Boy wouldn’t that have been swell?
Sigh. They knew exactly what they were doing. Guy who showed up to the wrong exam / Honey I Blew Up the Testicle, Jared Leto’s performance of Paolo Gucci, the number of prosthetics he had to carry on his face, his faded raspberry suit, and it’s-a-me Mario voice will incite more interesting reactions than any line of dialogue he has been given. Leto clearly loves being the centre of argument and dances with glee in the discourse. In an interview with NME, Leto compared his process to “birthing a bowling ball out of [his] sphincter” and said as a musician he related to how the “starving artist” was marginalized by the Gucci family and eventually according to Leto was turned into a martyr. Leto told I-D:
I was snorting lines of arrabbiata sauce by the middle of this movie. I had olive oil for blood. This was a deep dive I did If you took a biopsy of my skin, it would come back as parmesan cheese!
Leto was forced to take some liberties as he developed the performance off of a single soundbite and instead prepared by listening to Italian pop hits of the 80s. Leto also cited the current creative director of Gucci, Alessandro Michele as an inspiration, which clearly was a nonsensical decision.
<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/UVGIiZe3ptgIY5AMGK" width="480" height="480" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/Ovationtv-al-pacino-actors-studio-actorsstudioovation-UVGIiZe3ptgIY5AMGK">via GIPHY</a></p>
Something promising happens within the third act of House of Gucci, an otherwise overcalculated and uninteresting two hour and forty-minute mess. As the walls close in on Gaga’s Patrizia Reggiani, her estranged lover Maurizio Gucci, the heir to the throne played by Adam Driver starts seeing major success after taking the helm of the once relevant company.
Without warning, and seemingly within just a few scenes of each other, two real world fashion icons are properly brought to life, media mogul Anna Wintour whose iteration of Vogue magazine helped re-legitimize Gucci and another being, even more significant. Maurizio needs a new lead designer, one talented enough to appease a new group of Iraqi investors, but not yet influential enough to already have his own line. The film coyly teases the sketches from a designer that the Gucci team has located in the American South. It’s Tom Ford, then an unknown dreamer from Austin who had done little but work for Perry Ellis. His ready-to-wear women’s line would takeover Gucci and revive the brand as one of the premier fashion houses in the 90's. It’s the first time in the film that tertiary influences on the Gucci empire like Lagerfeld, Versace, Armani, Sophia Loren, the later work of Yves Saint Laurent, contentious Asian markets, and Richard Avedeon (whose photoshoot is intercut with Tom Ford’s introduction) become more than just a mention or a lookalike glimpse. They turn the film into a snapshot of 90’s fashion, culture, and industry.
This is the movie we deserved. No, not a Tom Ford biopic. House of Gucci needed to look outside the Gucci family in order to contextualize its return amidst a rapidly transforming world of couture. Rivalries, legal battles, and corporate politics take a backseat to a soap opera, one whose depth relies heavily on emotional sensation with little to no setup: family squabbles and infighting are given with little explanation, an outrageous sex scene justifies a marriage, and character development is backseated for what is intended to be high energy, fast paced film making.
Nobody thought any of this was going to be good cinema, and a knowingly self-aware badness seemed to be communicated all the way up to marketing materials. Regardless, the high-profile casting of major stars and a veteran screen director has given the film its much needed critical divide, with some taking the route of labelling it as more than just a giant stinking pile of monogram canvas. Some are calling it a nimbly accomplished deep dive into the world of camp; others say it should justify a major diplomatic incident.
I call it missing the mark. Everything about the film internally and meta-physically, seems to posit its story as an empire of Clowns who want to be Kings. The film fails in that its royalty has not been presented as particularly cherished, and its clowns don’t actually take pies to the face. Even with Jared Leto enclosed in rubber and an entire Museum of archival pieces recreated for the film, it is simply not outrageous enough. Initially, we were promised a Scorsesean dumpster fire, that’s over-bloated-ness was insured by its level of camp. Unfortunately, the movie does not succeed on this level either. We should have been plied with images of obscene wealth. I’m talking helicopters, yachts, Italian sports cars in every shot…fuck inside even, crazier outfits, cocaine…where the hell was the cocaine? I mean look at the cake they served Al Pacino for his 70th birthday scene, circular, single level and covered in maraschino cherries. The Guccis are from Italy, this food should have looked like the breath of a child would cause it to collapse.
One must be forced to think that direct involvement from the brand would stop the story from becoming as defamatory as we would have liked it to have been. Evil should have been tied to corporate greed instead of adultery and ambition.
A lot of people will see this film, and a lot of people are going to like it. Markets in China give little to no fucks about things like story and just want to stare at double G logos while they point at the screen and remark at the 42nd Street knockoff scene. You’ll probably see it to, either when your girlfriend or girlfriends drag you to the theatre, or you go compulsively to stare at a movie that’s so bad it has to be good. Fuck man, I went on opening day at noon, when the theatre was practically empty. I had to see it.
So in spirit of a different movie set in Mexico starring Americans that is ultimately nine times more Italian, here is The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on House of Gucci.
A mainstay on the Ridley Scott artistic team since Gladiator, designer Janty Yates was given a costume-makers dream playground in House of Gucci.
Though given unprecedented full access to house archives for research purposes, only two physical historic pieces made it into the film:
Gaga’s Double G tunic and trousers worn for the scene in which she investigates replicas on 42nd Street and her Silk Blouse and Leather Skirt when she is served with divorce papers.
Other than these items, Yates designed her own looks to convey the power and embellishment of the Gucci brand. Those who wanted looks including the consignment market which has seen vintage Gucci catapult in value in the leadup to the film’s release, got what they came for.
It is jacked. Velvet suits, corduroy suits, Boucheron and Bulgari jewelry pieces, Pikkio from Rome, Giuseppe and Massimiliano, two-piece logo sets, bamboo handles.
The Fifties Constance bag designed for Jackie Onassis makes an appearance, as do the Buttercream yellow horsebit loafers which Aldo Gucci uses as capital to finalize a deal with the Iraqis. It’s period accurate as well, with Reggiani decked out in 70’s YSL and Rodolfo’s iconic scarves designed for Grace Kelly and Sophia Loren receiving authentic replication. Gaga, a renowned fashion wizard lent ideas of her own to the film’s fashion, including wearing a trench coat inside out in a frame since gone viral.
The major selling point of the film aside from Gaga, I could go on…fourteen suits were made for Al Pacino. The issue here is that this movie wants to be The Godfather, when clearly it should have been Casino.
What a missed opportunity. Don’t get it twisted, I’m not here to tell you that the music in House of Gucci was by any means bad, the way it was used was deplorable. Set across a few prime eras in analog pop music beginning at the discotheque and ending midway through the nineties, House of Gucci has no excuse here. A girl group doo-wop number opens the film, promising an allegiance to Scorsese, but instead coming off as a watered-down American Hustle.
Long stretches mundanely move without the help of a dramatic score. Three Donna Summer songs in a row defeat the purpose of disco. The gotcha needle drop of George Michael’s rockabilly tribute “Faith” teased by cathedral organs during the wedding scene, makes utterly no sense, and not just because the scene set in 1972 is using something made from 1987; “Faith” isn’t about marriage, it’s about the consequences of casual sex…real wedding altar material. Even the immortal “Heart of Glass,” which likely cost the production an arm and a leg, receiving front and centre placement for the film’s theatrical trailer, was reduced as a backing track for Jared Leto’s interrupted phone call. Are you serious?
The film ends with a duet between Tracy Chapman and Luciano Pavarotti, signalling the last nail in the Americanization of the sacred Italian brand but this sacrifices any final mode of the film’s explosive style, instead ending it somberly if not abruptly.
The link that seems to ensure the film from an all-out critical tar-and-feathering or box office bomb is the magnetic Lady Gaga and not just in her fiercely loyal fanbase who won’t let the quality of the film impede on a starring role in a marquee blockbuster. Gaga’s performance of the sadly under-realized Reggiani lights up the screen every time she is given a chance to sizzle.
As the woman who the Italian paparazzi captured as “the Black Widow,” Gaga had to work her full and unconventional range here, developing a character despicable enough to fear, but human enough to watch. She is seductive and conclusive, manic and emotional, sociopathic and vindictive, and somehow playing both the leading woman and the primary antagonist.
Not shy about her process, Gaga spent three years in preparation to play Reggiani, nine months of which using an accent. She studied the habits of housecats, foxes, and panthers to understand survival instinct.
The performance hasn’t come without its controversies. Oddly enough, Gaga did not meet with the real Reggiani, in order to ensure she would not be colluding in the glorification of her crimes. Many have criticized Gaga’s accent considering it to be inconsistent or inaccurate. Salma Hayek’s dialect coach on the production claimed it had more in common with Russian than it did with Italian. Though, it is a lack of development that provides the largest detriment to the performance, more than any vocal decision.
Reggiani’s intentions seem to be everchanging, no proper scene was written to explain her agenda or even show affection to her daughter – which is supposed to be her emotional fuel through the latter half of the film. It's not so much a shame as it might be a letdown for some, since Kristen Stewart’s outer-body Diana was the better performance. Still, notifying the press that you spent 18 months in character screams “I want a real Oscar.”
To be totally fair, decorated thespian Jeremy Irons likely didn’t give two shits about being in this movie and it would be safe to bet that fifty years as a respected actor likely cued him it in turn did not give two shits about his character.
Playing Rodolfo Gucci, the disapproving failed actor father of Adam Driver’s Maurizio who inherited the company from founder Guccio, it was as if Irons was given a character that practically anyone could have played. I am convinced his contract stated that he his character was playing a parlour game in which contestants were instructed to guess when and if he was using an Italian accent or not. Oftentimes, Irons played the ESL Rodolfo with perfect diction, adding in the odd “how do you say?” as if his character had trouble speaking.
When asked to act ill, Irons appeared more or less mobile, happier than he had been in the entire film with large racoon rings drawn around his eyes. In the next scene he is dead. Hate to say it, but an Italian screen veteran would have been nice.
Releasing two movies within two months is difficult to do at the top of your game let alone at the end of your career. Keep in mind that Soderbergh and Zemeckis who achieved the feat at their peaks shot smaller films as production paused for bigger ones. Ridley Scott on the other hand, an 83-year-old man who likely requires half a full day’s sleep has released two large productions adding The Last Duel which came out in September. Haven’t seen it? You’re in the majority. The film, starring a much-in-need-of-a-career-revival Matt Damon, grossed $28.9 million at the box office off of a $100 million budget. Round 2 comes with what is sure to be higher returns in the Gaga-fronted House of Gucci, a film Scott has been trying to get made since 2006.
Now 15 years later and 14 removed from American Gangster, Scott resembles a much less invested director with a far weaker batting average: Alien: Covenant, All the Money in the World, Exodus: Gods and Kings, Robin Hood, Body of Lies, The Counselor… only The Martian to show for it, what happened?
House of Gucci is no comeback. The director once known for helming striking visuals has taken the story meant to be beaming with colour and energy and shoots it drab, grey, faded, and bleak. Scenes set on snowy mountains appear to lack natural light. The streets of Italy are without colour.
Narratively the film glazes over what might have been the most gripping material, jumping over courtroom scenes to sentencing. Goodfellas-esque text card epilogues posit more interesting story lines than what made it into the film. Do you mean to tell me we’re going to bring Jared Leto in to do mindless backflips and not let him transform into Paolo dying from hepatitis in the streets of London in 1995? What the fuck Ridley? I guarantee you he’s madder than I am.
Scott considered having his daughter direct the film with Penelope Cruz in the lead after he first considered helming with Angelina Jolie and Leonardo DiCaprio as potential castings. It was then reported by The Guardian in 2016 that esteemed Hong Kong cinema icon Wong-Kar Wai would be taking on the film as his return project with Margot Robie and Big Short writer Charles Randolph taking on the script. Boy wouldn’t that have been swell?
Sigh. They knew exactly what they were doing. Guy who showed up to the wrong exam / Honey I Blew Up the Testicle, Jared Leto’s performance of Paolo Gucci, the number of prosthetics he had to carry on his face, his faded raspberry suit, and it’s-a-me Mario voice will incite more interesting reactions than any line of dialogue he has been given. Leto clearly loves being the centre of argument and dances with glee in the discourse. In an interview with NME, Leto compared his process to “birthing a bowling ball out of [his] sphincter” and said as a musician he related to how the “starving artist” was marginalized by the Gucci family and eventually according to Leto was turned into a martyr. Leto told I-D:
I was snorting lines of arrabbiata sauce by the middle of this movie. I had olive oil for blood. This was a deep dive I did If you took a biopsy of my skin, it would come back as parmesan cheese!
Leto was forced to take some liberties as he developed the performance off of a single soundbite and instead prepared by listening to Italian pop hits of the 80s. Leto also cited the current creative director of Gucci, Alessandro Michele as an inspiration, which clearly was a nonsensical decision.
<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/UVGIiZe3ptgIY5AMGK" width="480" height="480" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/Ovationtv-al-pacino-actors-studio-actorsstudioovation-UVGIiZe3ptgIY5AMGK">via GIPHY</a></p>
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