Synopsis

From MGM:

When Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga), an outsider from humble beginnings, marries into the Gucci family, her unbridled ambition begins to unravel the family legacy and triggers a reckless spiral of betrayal, decadence, revenge -- and ultimately murder.

Review

Umm... how do I begin to describe the experience that is House of Gucci? Let me start by saying that I ultimately enjoyed the movie but not before I spent days trying to unpack my confusion surrounding what I had seen. The film is not confusing or hard to understand, but baffling in terms of lack of coherence and quality. This is not a bad film… But it is not a particularly good one either. I had very high hopes based off of the amazing trailers and it just all of the talks surrounding this film. In that sense, I guess you could say that this film is one of the biggest disappointments of the year- well, that might be too harsh (you’ll find that this review is just as confused as the movie is about what it wants to be). There are things that I liked, things that I didn’t like, and the things I just thought were strange… 

Let’s start with the positives. Lady Gaga is the best part of this movie. Hands-down. Her performance is strong and emotional, and I think very capably showcases her range as an actress. She more than likely will receive an Oscar nomination this season. My other favorite performance was that of Al Pacino. I think he and Lady Gaga are the film’s best chances at acting nominations. Also, technically, the film shines. The costume design and production design are most notable. I would not think it’s far-fetched for the film to receive Academy praise in those realms. The cinematography is also nice but, in my opinion, it’s no more special than any regular film. 

There’s less that I didn’t like than did (well... we'll see). The main thing that I did not like was Jared Leto’s performance. I thought that he was playing a caricature or a cartoon character the entire time. The way that he carried himself was buffoonish and the way that he spoke was so stereotypically Italian that, I feel, if I were Italian, I would have been offended. I’ve heard his accent in the film described as “super Mario” and I don’t think I could describe it better. It was to the point where I was surprised that he didn’t say “Mamma Mia! That’s a big-a pizza pie-a”. I thought the film was edited poorly and oddly. I also think the script does the film a disservice. The focus of the story is not where it should be. It focuses more on the business side of fashion then I would have liked. I feel that it should have focused more on the family dynamic and the fashion itself. The film also shifts its focus away from Lady Gaga's character at a certain point and I think that’s really when the film loses its self. And even though the movie is too long (it could easily be 30 to 45 minutes shorter than it is), they needed to spend more time on the murder plot. That part of the story, which one can argue is the most important, is so rushed that it doesn’t even make sense for it to be a part of the story. We get some great Lady Gaga scenes out of it but it’s just not flushed out enough. Also, the soundtrack is very strange. This film contains possibly the worst/weirdest use of George Michael’s “Faith” that I’ve ever seen. And that’s all I will say on that. 

Now to what was strange, and bear with me… tonally, this film is an abomination. It’s a mess, but for me, it was a mess in all the right ways. The film doesn’t really know what kind of movie it wants to be. Like at times it feels like a mafia movie, but then it’s a family drama, but then it’s a relationship drama, but then it’s a murder story, but then it’s also like succession. It’s almost indescribable. Also, most of the actors seem to be in different films. It’s like they all got the script and were each assigned a genre to play it in. The all–over-the-place-ness surprised me. But, with all of these pieces and parts that don’t really come together well, it almost fits squarely into the definition of a camp film. When I walked out of this movie, I asked my friend if she would describe it as camp. And she said "I’m not sure." The question that arises when you called this movie campy is: “is it camp on purpose?” And unfortunately, I think the answer is no. If the answer was yes, then the film did its job. But since, based on how the film has been marketed and such, the answer seems to be no, the film suffers. 

Somehow, I still enjoyed my time watching this film. I was not bored, but it might bore some people. As I said, it’s too long, but I did not feel its length too terribly. It never FELT like I was watching a near three-hour movie. I don’t know, House of Gucci…. hmm… It's like All the Money in the World, but not as good... interesting.