House of Gucci review: Murder the Italian way

The nicest thing I can say about House of Gucci and also the cruelest thing is that it should have been an Italian movie. Set primarily in Milan, it tells a sprawling, chaotic tale bordering on opera, family feuds, sexual jealousy, and capitalist intrigue, with plenty of drinks, cigarettes, and snacks (carpaccio is highly recommended). Also cars, shoes, hats, sports coats, handbags, dresses, lingerie, whatever you want!

But for all this abundance, something is missing. Lots of things, really, but above all a strong idea and a credible reason for existing. The true story of how the Gucci family lost control of the company that still bears his name and how its descendant, Maurizio Gucci, lost his life to the bullets of a hitman allegedly could inspire Bernardo Bertolucci to the heights of decadent spectacle, Luchino Visconti to flights of dialectical extravagance or Lina Wertmuller to feats of perverse ideological analysis. The raw material plays both tragedy and farce.

Current director Ridley Scott has ample style and impressive artistry, but at least this time around he seems to lack the necessary vision or inspiration. (His underrated All the Money in the World was a harsher, harsher treatment of similar material.) The screenplay, by Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna (based on Sara Gay Fordens’ book), has a repetitive, spinning quality. . Most of the scenes consist of Gucci yelling at other Gucci in Milan and New York, in the middle of the Alps and near a lake, in hotels, conference rooms, villas and cafes. The screams, in heavily accented English, last from the early ’70s to the mid’ 90s, and you can tell what year it is by scanning the clothes and hairstyles. For a while, it looks like the musical clues (David Bowie, Eurythmics) might help as well, but at some point in the ’80s the playlist is scrambled.

About these Gucci. Have you heard of ham? Well, this is a family size salumi platter. Adam Driver is relatively restrained as Maurizio, who, as a law student, meets Patrizia Reggiani at a party, where she charmingly mistakes him for a bartender. She comes from a less enthusiastic family, her father owns a small trucking business, and she is played by Lady Gaga with the verve of an Anna Magnani avatar in a Super Mario video game.

It’s fun for a while, the movie is over two and a half hours long and Gaga and Driver have some interesting chemistry. Maurizio is calm and a bit passive, but Patrizia pushes him towards a bolder idea of ​​himself. He challenges his aristocratic father, Rodolfo (an impeccable and sepulchral Jeremy Irons), who views Patrizia as a social climber and gold digger. He’s not entirely wrong, but Maurizio marries her anyway and finds brief happiness working for his in-laws, trading in his tailored suits for proletarian suits. He plays football and horses with the other drivers and mechanics during his lunch break until Patrizia summons him to the office to take care of his marital duties. It’s pretty hot stuff.

But as the mood moves from the sex comedy to the noblest, the money, loyalty, and family honor get darker and darker. House of Gucci manages to get overworked and boring at the same time. The older Gucci generation is split between Rodolfo and his brother Aldo (Al Pacino), who runs the New York side of the business. Casting Pacino and Irons as siblings is a witty move: at this point in their careers, both are very mannered, sometimes almost self-parodying performers who exist on opposite ends of the thermal spectrum. If Irons were colder, he would crystallize. If Pacino got hotter, he would catch fire.

To complicate the kinship network and avoid a potentially dangerous explosion of understatement, Aldo has a son, Paolo, who thinks he’s a fashion genius and is played by Jared Leto. Have you heard of ham? Leto does the mortadella, puffed up and stuffed in a pink corduroy suit, puffing up tobacco smoke and throwing himself into paroxysms of agitated. Her most memorable line is Boof-ah!

There is potential here for camp, for glamor, for something fishy, ​​mean and over the top. Did I mention that Salma Hayek plays a fortune teller who becomes Patrizias’ sidekick and advisor? But all the emotion is crammed into a curiously literal procedural framework, as if someone had tried to make an opera libretto out of court transcriptions.

Patrizia urges Maurizio to cultivate alliances with his uncle and cousin, then considers pushing them back, but rather than being contradictory, his motives simply seem inconsistent. As Maurizio’s marital ardor begins to subside and he abandons her for an icy blonde (Camille Cottin), Patrizias focuses from commerce to revenge.

At that point, House of Gucci lost track of its own history and collapsed into contempt for its characters, who are terrible businessmen on top of everything else. A postscript appears on screen informing us that Gucci, no longer a dynastic family business, is now a lucrative global luxury brand, a bit of non-news that arrives as a muted happy ending. It turns out that it’s not really a tragedy or a farce, a grand opera or a bouffe opera: its business promotion.

Gucci House
Classified R. Mamma mia! Duration: 2 hours 37 minutes. In theaters.