House of Gucci (2021)
Kicking, squealing Gucci little piggy?
Kicking, squealing Gucci little piggy?
“I had no idea I’d married a monster”
“You didn’t. You married a Gucci”
This is a special one off review and without my usual array of green inked scribbled notes. The question of why is simply that I hadn’t planned to pen these few hundred words as I hadn’t planned to watch the film at all and when I did last night (24th February) I was too engrossed and intrigued to turn on the lights and open my infamous notebook. I watched at first out of sheer curiosity for director Ridley Scott’s previous storied filmmaking career and then for a cast of characters who were infused with their own version of detached humanity provided by a stellar five star show from Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Jared Leto, Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons as well as an equally stellar co starring list of cameo roles that impressed me throughout.
So I wasn’t going to watch but I did, and even though I wasn’t going to watch because I have no interest whatsoever in the twisted tale or the products for which the Gucci family is famous, I was rather won over, charmed and despite the up and down grating nature of the various accents and dialects painstakingly employed, I rather enjoyed a film that was otherwise going to remain off my film radar. What follows are brief dissections of the five principal characters and how their lives intersect with the brilliant cameo roles surrounding them:
“Patrizia Reggiani” (Lady Gaga). Being of an older generation I have no interest in the music of Lady Gaga but I do in her burgeoning acting career, the promise of which was so aptly demonstrated in her fantastic turn in 2018’s A Star is Born alongside Bradley Cooper. Here, Lady Gaga portrays the brash, outspoken nature of a blue collar family made good through hard work and steadfast belief in family. This second virtue is both the epitome of her rise and indeed her fall as when her whirlwind romance with Maurizio Gucci (see below) leads to marriage and it comes amid the happiest and warmest part of the film, it also showcases that someone from a disparaged family of truckers will never be a famed Gucci, even by marriage. Her spiral is brilliantly played by an ever changing and older Lady Gaga as the film follows a late 1970’s through to mid 1990’s timeline and the change in temperament, aspirations and wealth desires are so well portrayed. Of the five Marquee star names, Lady Gaga held my intrigue and interest for the film throughout.
“Maurizio Gucci” (Adam Driver). The bookish, quiet and introverted side to the marriage he was depicted as growing out and indeed tired of, Adam Driver’s methodical and somewhat daydreamer performance is a stark opposite to that of his co-star above. Driver is seemingly ever smiling and unconcerned and this only changes towards the final Act of the film and when the life he depicts has changed radically and seemingly slowly out of his meticulous control. Driver’s performance here is of quiet stoicism and a growing hunger for the trappings of a family he tried at first to reject and whilst not as accomplished as his turns in Inside Llewyn Davis, Silence, Marriage Story or the Star Wars franchise, he acquits himself brilliantly against the growing force of nature of his on screen wife.
“Paulo Gucci” (Jared Leto). Scorned by everyone except for his loving Father Aldo (see below), this is yet another dramatic and dramatically physically changed performance from the front man of the rock band 30 Seconds to Mars. This is nothing new for Jared Leto, as we can stretch back to his cameo performance as “Angel Face” in David Fincher’s seminal movie Fight Club in 1999 where he is as indistinguishable there as he is in the gloriously depressing Requiem for a Dream a year later. Two decades on he’ll be more fondly remembered within this particular zeitgeist as “The Joker” in the Justice League franchise, however his Oscar winning performance as “Rayon” in Dallas Buyers Club is perhaps the epitome of a performance that at first glance you can’t help but say “But that can’t be X, Y or Z”. But it is, and it was Jared Leto here, and in a peculiarly offbeat and very singular role that often seemed to be transported into the film from nowhere, and no doubt very deliberately so. His accent was the worst of a bad lot!
His performance though was not.
“Aldo Gucci” (Al Pacino). Deliberately large of waistline and very much the powerhouse and loudly pronounced performance we’ve come to expect from one of Hollywood’s last remaining old school actors. Along with Jeremy Irons below, the smaller of the Marquee performances here and as is so often the case, Pacino is at his best when rather more dialled down and acting as a kind of canny observer at the world around him.
“Rodolfo Gucci” (Jeremy Irons). Bitter and seemingly bitterly unhappy with the ghosts that pervade his life and despite the vast wealth and empire he wishes to entrust in the safe keeping of his reluctant son, Maurizio. His immediate dismissal of his son’s love for Patrizia is brilliantly juxtaposed within seconds of the same scene as he proudly proclaims how his son brightened the darkest hours of his life, Irons is wonderfully and belligerently eccentric in a vital role here.
In support of these five headline performers are two performances that shouldn’t be overlooked in the shape of Selma Hayek as “Pina Auriemma” and Jack Huston as “Domenico De Sole”. Hayek is wonderfully extravagant as a soothsaying Spiritualist Medium who guides so much of Patrizia’s thinking and beliefs of a golden future whilst Jack Huston is almost entrusted in ensuring that she doesn’t achieve that future, and certainly not with the trusted name of Gucci. It is he who delivers one of the most iconic and pointed lines of the film by slapping down Patrizia’s exclamation that rightly by marriage she is in fact now a Gucci, but Huston’s actions and facial expressions in his consiglieri role tell a very different story indeed.
In fact, Jack Huston’s role almost eclipsed that of Lady Gaga and was a mirror image to her on screen husband’s quiet and reflective performance. But Gaga’s performance was vital in injecting a verve, spirited and down to earth portrayal the film desperately needed and a film I wasn’t going to watch, but did, and enjoyed even, and whilst it’ll never feature on my extensive “Favourite Films” list, it was an interesting and intriguing way of spending over two hours in the company of a nest of vipers, and a nest and a brand that was almost monetarily destroyed.
Thanks for reading. My archives are full of varying film reviews, three of which are listed below as examples that can be found within my articles here:
Danny Boyle — 12 Cinematic Gems
Trainspotting to Trainspotting and ten more gems all lovingly appreciated and spoiler free from inside a shallow grave.medium.com
The French Dispatch (2021)
Wes Anderson’s “Love Letter to Journalists”.medium.com
“The Card Counter” by Paul Schrader
and why did a film covering so many of my passions leave me so cold?medium.com