House of Gucci Review

House of Gucci is the second film by Ridley Scott this year. His second 2021 film was sadly a weaker offering from Mr. Scott.

House of Gucci chronicles the rise and fall of Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) and Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) within the famous fashion house. The pair go from outsiders of the Gucci family because of their relationship, to becoming powerful figures within Gucci, before the eventual collapse of their marriage.

House of Gucci aimed to be a cross between a crime saga-style story and a Shakespearian tragedy, particularly Macbeth. Rise and fall narratives are popular in crime films: they worked in films like Little Caesar, Scarface, and Goodfellas. In House of Gucci the rise and fall story happened to be within a major company instead of the world of organised crime. Although members of the Gucci family did partake in financial crimes.

As the title suggests, House of Gucci was a dynastic tale. It plays a little like the HBO series Succession which tells of a family who runs a media company. Gucci, the comedy, was run by the Gucci Family, and these divisions over the direction of the company. Aldo Gucci (Al Pacino) made the company profitable, but his brother, Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons) believed the profitability came at the expense of the company’s image. But these were just business disagreements, it didn’t affect their familial bond. Patrizia ended up being the corrupting influence on the Guccis.

Patrizia’s role gave House of Gucci its Macbeth element. Patrizia acted as a Lady Macbeth figure. She was an ambitious woman who convinced her husband to become more active within the company so she can fulfill her ambitions. She turned Maurizio from a humble aspiring lawyer to a cut-throat businessman. Maurizo’s change from a man who was willing to give up his family legacy for love to putting his own interests first, a man who would play football with lorry drivers to making a run to the Swiss border to avoid the police. Patrizia even turned to a psychic to tell her the future, which felt like a reference to the witches from the Scottish play.

Maurizio had some similarities to Michael Corleone from The Godfather. The Godfather was about how Michael Corleone went from not wanting to be part of the family business to become the head of the Corleone Crime Family. Maurizio had a similar arc because he went from someone who didn’t have much interest in working for Gucci to working up the company ladder.

Whilst House of Gucci had a lot going for it thematically, the execution was lacking. The most obvious issue was the acting which was a mixed bag. Adam Driver gave the best performance due to Maurizio’s character journey and coming across as a normal person amidst all the crazy characters around him. The other major characters acted like they were in a soap opera or based their performances on Italian stereotypes.

The worst example of the acting was Jared Leto as Paolo Gucci. The make-up team did a great job changing Leto’s appearance because he was unrecognisable but that’s as far as the praise goes. Leto played his role so broadly because Paulo was a vain idiot with an inflated opinion about his own abilities. He wore ghastly suits and was an embarrassment to the family. Leto played his character as such a big stereotype that I expected him to wear a red top with blue overalls and saying ‘it’s a me, Mario.’ The film critics Ross Miller and Linda Marric put it best in a Tweet where they compared Leto’s performance to The Dolmio Chef. The film did drag Paolo through the mud because in real life Paolo Gucci was the chief designer at the company and designed Gucci’s famous logo.

House of Gucci had a long runtime in that it covered an 18-year period. Sadly, the film felt like this because at times it felt like a drag. It suffered from a situation where the story presented had too much for a film, but not enough material for a miniseries. The film’s focus should have just been on the relationship between Maurizio and Patrizia and their role within Gucci, whilst a miniseries would have been about to expand the story to show the ambitions and personal relationships of more characters.

The filmmakers had the ambition to make thematic drama. Whilst the intent was there, House of Gucci ended up coming across as a hollow experience.