House Of Gucci

People have been laughing and skitting about House Of Gucci since cheesy photos of it's principal cast in character were released a few months ago. Then for the last month photos of the cast on the premiere red carpet became meme material and after that to no real surprise bad word of mouth started to seep out regarding the film's quality. When you sit down to watch it you might wonder at first were the reviews wrong. It's light and frothy and charming, a meet cute that's engineered into a relationship in a tight 20 minutes that includes football fun, disco time and a sex scene so vigorous that it makes the swimming pool scene from Showgirls look restrained. Then Al Pacino appears in all his tanned, leathery glory and everything falls off a cliff.

The Gucci's. The royal family of the Italian fashion industry. The heir to 50% of the family business is Maurizio (Adam Driver), an awkward young man training to be a lawyer. One night he meets a woman called Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) and the two fall for each other fast. Rodolfo Gucci (Jeremy Irons), Maurizio's father, senses she's out for money and warns his son of the fact causing a rift between them that lasts until his death. The other 50% of the business belongs to Aldo Gucci (Al Pacino), who Maurizio reconciles with after the death in the family. Aldo's a flamboyant businessman, unafraid to break with tradition and striving to bring the business to new places while his son Paolo (Jared Leto) aspires to design for the family company but hasn't the skill or the intelligence to do so. Little do any of the Gucci's realise what Patrizia has planned for the future of the family dynasty.

House Of Gucci is 160 minutes long. Christ. What was director Ridley Scott thinking? If there was ever a film that needed an editor like Thelma Schoonmaker this is it. There's a smattering of good in this film but it's longeurs will have you crying out for the ending you know is coming from the opening few minutes. An abundance of cheese and performances so bad they will make you howl with laughter but their effect is totally diluted by the fact you'll be bored silly by the time the good stuff shows up. For decades now Al Pacino has been perfecting the art of hammy acting and just when you think he's about to deliver a porcine masterclass in breezes Jared Leto with a performance so deeply outlandish that Pacino's enjoyable version of bad just seems like plain ol' bad. When either is onscreen the film feels like high camp trash designed to make you bust a gut and when they vanish for whole swathes of the running time it suffers accordingly. Inconsistency is the watch word of House of Gucci. Had it settled on a camp tone throughout, you'd have a ball with this. But in the words of a displeased Paolo, it's just boff.

Driver and Gaga though. They do work. Sadly not well enough to salvage the film in anyway but from their earlier chemistry to their later enmity, things feels fiery when they're onscreen together. Not that either is particularly good, and their accents especially are atrocious but they at least create a couple you'll be interested in watching. Gaga's Patrizia is a piece of work, and from her second, planned meeting with Maurizio you'll have her pegged instantly. She's gotten a taste of the good life and the lengths she'll go to to keep up appearances would seem far fetched in fiction but everything you'll see onscreen is based on fact. Even the spell casting. Oh yeah, spell casting. Did no one mention the spell casting? Or the Gucci take on the beautiful game of rugby? Or the way Jared Leto's Paolo seemingly exists in a comic book universe??? There's too much here to unpack. And none of it is really worth the effort.

House Of Gucci is in cinemas now. It's really not good. You gotta hand it to director Ridley Scott though. In his mid 80's and twice as productive as directors half his age. Nine films and a huge TV show in the past decade and four more films on the way. The days of Alien and Gladiator are well behind him but you have to admire anyone this committed to the cause of film making. You'd just wish he'd turn back on the quality filter.