In 1972, Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) marries Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) in a rags to riches fairytale wedding, but this story is not destined to end happily ever after.  After the passing of Rodolfo Gucci (Jeremy Irons), who never looked kindly on Patriza’s humble beginnings, she pushes her soft-spoken husband to take control of the family brand and push it to new and greater heights.  Needless to say, the other family shareholders; Aldo (Al Pacino) and Paolo (Jared Leto), have their own plans and ambitions, and soon it is a brutal, no-holds-barred battle to the top to see who will steer Gucci into the new era of fashion.

Ridley Scott directs the darkly comedic, family melodrama, House of Gucci, for MGM.  The film boasts an incredibly high caliber cast and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves as they embody these larger-than-life characters and get to really push the limits of their performance.  Some moments work better than others in their embracing of the absurdity, but overall they all seem to be operating on the same level of wild behavior that no one seems out of place in the world of the film.  The only one that truly stands out is Driver, and it is not a knock on his performance, but he is a much meeker character – or at least wears the mask of meekness throughout most of the film – when compared to the other members of the cutthroat and ruthless Gucci Dynasty.  He plays the role of the straight man quite well, yet knowing his dynamic range as an actor it feels like the role underutilizes him.

The biggest flaw in the acting of the film is the grating accent work.  In small doses and in the first thirty minutes or so it is not too bothersome, but as the film runs for 157 minutes, the cartoony Italian accent eventually turns to nails on a chalkboard.  While the entire cast looks great in their costumes by Janty Yates which were reportedly pulled from the Gucci vaults, and they visually fit into Arthur Max’s production design, a little more time spent in vocal coaching would have made the character work quite seamless. 

As for the script, House of Gucci takes its time to really get going.  It spends the first hour or so setting the stage, but after Rodolfo passes is when Patrizia begins to take on some real Lady Macbeth-influenced ambition and the film begins to come to life.  The second act really picks up speed and there is all the drama, backstabbing, and deep dark secrets that you could ever want to be displayed on the silver screen.  In the latest addition to the growing list of reclamation roles that seek to untangle the misunderstood and untold stories behind some of our iconically-styled tabloid queens – think Margot Robbie in I, Tonya (2017) or more recently even Jessica Chastain in The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) – Gaga’s Patrizia is the sun, and later the black hole, that supports and destroys everything in her orbit. She is ruthless in her role as this woman who will stop at nothing to protect the brand name, but her true alliance lies in her adopted last name.

Both Aldo and Paolo end up like flies in Patrizia’s trap, and their dynamic together is truly enjoyable to watch.  Pacino’s eccentricity lends itself to filling the shoes on the elder Gucci, and while the role does not fully disguise the veteran actor known for his outbursts on screen, it never feels out of place.  Opposite him, especially more so in the third act is Leto, unrecognizable under the layers of makeup and prosthetics.  Thankfully, the marketing did not focus on his method-acting antics, and Leto actually excels in this screwball role of a man that follows his own instincts and everything else can be damned. He brings enough manic energy so he is not eclipsed by the veteran actor, and the two find harmony in the chaos so that it does not get too over the top.

The final act of the film does feel a little rushed.  After the tediousness of the first act, everything wraps itself up with great speed.  The biggest issue here is that it deals with the action in the same steady and methodical way that the rest of the film had followed.  There was never a sense of frantic energy that would have given us a great, pot boiling over, style ending that the film was so intricately laying down the pieces for.

Scott treats the Gucci brand like its own mafia family.  Mix that angle with the opulent settings, it is not surprising that the film is visually reminiscent of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972). Gucci lacks the same formality of that seminal work, though its execution can still draw an immediate comparison to the work of Martin Scorsese who has more or less laid claim to this corner of the market with his own impressive run of gangster films.  While House of Gucci is not as blatant a work of plagiarism of style as David O. Russell’s American Hussle (2013), the editing, the snapshots, and the needle drops make the Scorsese influence quite clear.  House of Gucci, however, is not as bombastic as the films in Scorsese’s series of excess and while Scott adopts a peppier style of filmmaking than his most immediate modern crime tale, All the Money in the World (2017), we can’t help but feel that we have seen all these same tricks done before, and what is worse is that we have seen them all done better, too.