In his second of two films released this year, Ridley Scott introduces us to the House of Gucci. Telling the true story of the world-famous fashion house, as well as the infamous assassination of Maurizio Gucci at the request of his wife, Patrizia Reggianni, House of Gucci has languished in development since the early 2000s before finally arriving on our screens in time for award season. Adapted from Sara Gay Foden's novel subtitled 'A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour and Greed', and starring an all-star ensemble, does House of Gucci carry a pricetag worth splashing out on?
Covering almost two decades of the Gucci dynasty, House of Gucci follows the breakdown of the once-family driven company as money, greed and murder change the fashion world forever. Starring Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Jared Leto, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Salma Hayek, Ridley Scott's second feature in as many months has been heralded as one of the year's most anticipated titles - but winds up as one of the most disappointing instead.
Ridley Scott's House of Gucci is an uninspired, tired and rather boring endeavour, all words the Gucci empire has never been associated with until now. Wasted is the thrilling true premise that the film's marketing centralised and we are instead left sulking with an overlong, overstuffed and unsatisfying venture into a dynasty that never gets to the heart of what the brand actually is, or dedicate enough time to the headline-grabbing moment to explore its consequences on either character or legacy. Here, the House of Gucci falls because of how awkwardly, unconfidently stacked the whole thing is.
Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna's screenplay is a scramble of half-hearted ideas, disparate tones and pretty dreadful dialogue that paints caricatures in place of characters. We are dealing with a story oozing with scandal and excitement, unbelievable developments and murderous deceit - yet the real meat of the story is cluttered by tangents and deviations that fails to give it the room to breathe, with plot strands that are abandoned without warning and dissolve into nothing. Perhaps even more damningly, none of these characters feel real and, in turn, we struggle to establish an emotional, sympathetic or even a truly enraged response towards any of them.
Majorly lacking in the class that could have elevated it, and completely devoid of the camp extravagance that could have made it playful fun, Ridley Scott was the wrong choice to direct the project and is unable to unite the various entities that are operating in conflict with one another. Considering its setting within the fashion world, House of Gucci is stylistically inert with blunt aesthetical decisions that make it a surprisingly ugly affair. Beyond, arguably, some lovely costume design, none of the glamour and seduction is present, with the abrupt editing making the lengthy 158-minute runtime all the more confounding. In trying to be so many things - or rather, in failing to streamline itself and rein in the actors determined on making the film their own - Scott's scattershot execution sends the House into disarray.
Gucci's flashy cast are a decidedly mixed bag. Lady Gaga, in her second major film role, is mostly serviceable but ultimately fails to get under the skin of Patricia Reggianni, swallowed up by the machinery and pantomime. While far from a bad performance, with glimmers of the heart and soul that made her Oscar-nominated role in A Star is Born so special, it requires a complexity that Gaga does not yet have the acting experience to truly achieve. Adam Driver is playing it straighter and perhaps the only key player not interested in making the entire charade about his Maurizio Gucci; he comes closest to presenting a character that actually appears human. They're both victims of a massively underwhelming script that needed to tighten its focus and deepen its emotional reach.
Jared Leto is flat-out terrible but in an oddly, horrendously compelling way. It's hard to look away from such a trainwreck of a performance, one that would somehow feel too melodramatic in an amateur Pantomime production at your local church hall. It is fuelled by obnoxious stereotyping, embarrassing scenery-knawing and the most pungent stench of award season desperation. But here's the scary thing: the film he's performing in appears to be the most fun of the bunch, and holds such potential for a story about Gucci that you almost wish the others were approaching his level. Please don't confuse it, he is truly awful - but Leto is having more fun than I was watching the rest of it and that might count for something?
House of Gucci's greatest fault lies in the lack of cohesion in its vision. Every single player is starring in a different film, playing a character who belongs to an entirely different genre and tone of movie altogether. Be it a farcical comedy, a legal drama, a crime thriller or a period melodrama, no one here is sharing the same script and the page they should be singing from has no one trying to hold it together. It's neither fun and camp, nor prestigious and dramatic enough, with the moments of brightness that poke through inadvertently highlighting just how slapdash and shoddy the rest of it is. House of Gucci is a crushing waste of potential.