Bloat Couture
Mamma mia! ‘House of Gucci’ has plenty of sauce but not nearly enough cheese.
house of gucci
Director: Ridley Scott • Writers: Becky Johnston, Roberto Bentivegna
Starring: Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino, Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons, Salma Hayek, Jack Huston, Camille Cottin
USA/Canada • 2hr 38min
Opens Hong Kong Nove 25 • IIB
Grade: B-
We need to talk about Jared Leto.
Jared Leto turns up as the sad sack Paolo Gucci in Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, and in a film that isn’t quite sure what it wants to be, and which swings wildly between frothy camp and dead serious, he is the runaway bright spot. It must also be noted that over the last few years — in Suicide Squad, Zack Snyder’s Justice League, The Little Things, Blade Runner 2049 — Jared Leto has been this close to intolerable and insufferable. But. In starring in another movie, clearly one in his own mind that only he can see, Leto picks up House of Gucci and runs away with it. When his hopelessly untalented, frumpy Paolo discovers he’s been stabbed in the back by his cousin and had his imprint label dumped in order to protect The Brand, he finds the cousin and announces he’s done with him. “Goodbye Maurizio,” he says, in a glorious Italian accent clearly common among Italians living on the third moon of Saturn. It makes you want to stand up and yell, “No! Don’t let Leto go!” If there was more of this lunacy, Scott would have the year’s frothiest, nuttiest pleasure on his hands.
But it does not. House of Gucci is far more dramatic than its early trailers suggested. What we got in those luscious teasers was the promise of tacky, campy salaciousness about the implosion of the Gucci clan in the 1980s and 1990s, with all sorts of financial scandals, family in-fighting and, capping it all off, murder for hire. What we get in reality is a pick-a-lane drama that could use a sprinkling of Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story self-aware prurience and a dash of the white guy neo-masculinity Adam Driver displayed in his Old Spice Guy-lite Burberry ad this year — the artistic pinnacle in year that included Annette. The one with the horse. Look it up, you’ll thank me.
This is Jared Leto. Serioulsy. It’s fantastic
Based on the book by Sara Gay Forden, House of Gucci tracks the entry into the hallowed halls of Italian fashion of trucker Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga at her most Gaga). Okay, she’s not a trucker, but her father owns a trucking company, which patriarch Rodolfo Gucci (Jeremy Irons) finds trashy, no pun intended. This from a guy with little ‘G’s all over his clothes, but no bother. She meets and puts the moves to his only son, Maurizio (Driver) eventually getting married. At the same time, Rodolfo’s brother Aldo (Al Pacino) is expanding the brand in the US and, crucially, Japan, and soon the friction between heritage and future revenue streams rears it ugly head. Patrizia, of course, is sure she can steer the Guccis into the 21st century, and in her best Lady Macbeth impression she is the catalyst for family betrayals, double crosses and leveraged buyouts. Then she has Maurizio shot, but that comes partially as a reaction to him dumping her for his old girlfriend, Paola, and watching her meal ticket walk out the door. Like Patrizia, Lady Gaga — or perhaps we should call her Stefani Germanotta because she’s a real thespian now? — is making an aggressive play for power (an Oscar nomination at the very least) but her performance is, well, performative. She gives off an air of playing dress-up, with little concern for nuance. She’s working class. She wants nice clothes. She lashes out when you take her toys away.
There’s Leto on the far left, again stealing the thunder from champion scenery chewer Al Pacino and emerging ACTOR!! Lady Gaga
In fairness to Ms Germanotta, there are a few movies happening here, and Scott’s not sure which one tickles him the most. The drama about the reshaping of a storied brand we all know, how it was rescued from obsolescence by an emerging Tom Ford (Reeve Carney, Penny Dreadful’s Dorian Gray) and the rivalries among elite luxury fashion houses for talent is an interesting one, and one that may have had room to explore Gucci’s reaction to the rise in counterfeiting — which is mentioned and then almost immediately forgotten. The batshit bio-crime pic with more Leto, more Gaga doing ALL the accents (hers evidently originated in the Orion Nebula), more of Pacino gnawing on the gorgeous Milan scenery and more of Driver being a scallawag that drove his wife to murder (that’s evidently a huge dollop of dramatic license) is something else — and probably a lot more fun. C’mon: how can Salma Hayek running around threatening people with hexes and stink-eyes be dull? It can’t, but in opting for a bit of both movies Scott misses the mark on both. Most unforgivable, perhaps — aside from a run time that tries the patience of even the most devout Scott and fashion wonks — are the film’s drab visuals. A movie about haute couture, shot in Italy by the director who made Blade Runner, made Mars look like a great holiday destination and contributed to Apple’s corporate identity, and his regular DOP Dariusz Wolski (visual gems like Dark City and HBO’s Raised by Wolves), and set during the tacky part of the ’90s should at least be eye-candy. It’s not.
But Jared Leto. Jared Leto hits his target every time, and injects House of Gucci with what fabulousness it does manage to achieve. Bravo, carissimo. Bravo.
Adam Driver as Maurizio Gucci. The horse ad is better