Movie Review - House of Gucci

At the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards, the FX series The Assassination of Gianni Versace (2018) won several prizes, including Outstanding Limited Series. It's about the killing of fashion designer, Gianni Versace who was shot dead on the steps of his property in July 1997. The series is also about the events leading up to that killing. This film is similarly about the killing of Maurizio Gucci who wasn't a fashion designer but he was the chairman of a fashion company. Gucci was also shot dead on the steps of his property, in this case his office, in March 1995. Because of those similarities, I couldn't help but think of that series while watching this film. Other similarities include the fact that both men who are murdered have partners or love interests who aren't accepted by members of their families. There are also others who don't think that the men who are murdered are fit to run their respective companies. Like the series, this film focuses on the person responsible for the murder and digging into why this person committed the crime.

Lady Gaga won an Oscar for her role in A Star Is Born (2018), but she also had a starring role in American Horror Story, which is the series created by Ryan Murphy, the Emmy-winning producer who also created The Assassination of Gianni Versace. Her presence in this film is also why the comparison to that 2018 series is appropriate. Here, Lady Gaga plays Patrizia Reggiani, the woman who is responsible for the murder in question here. She's essentially a social climbing, gold digger who becomes too ambitious and hyper-jealous.

Adam Driver (Marriage Story and BlacKkKlansman) co-stars as Maurizio Gucci, an Italian law student who was the only child of Rodolfo Gucci, one of the people running the fashion company called House of Gucci. Rodolfo runs the company with his brother, Aldo. Unlike Aldo's son, Rodolfo's son doesn't appear to have an interest in fashion. Maurizio doesn't even seem to be all that interested in business. He's initially an awkward book-worm type. He could even be described as a wallflower. At a party, he isn't literally a wallflower, but he's for some reason behind the bar.

It's not until Maurizio meets Patrizia that he starts to come out his shell. She meets him at that party and she's the one who literally pulls him onto the dance-floor despite his saying he doesn't dance. She pushes him or encourages him, which leads to him being more assertive and standing up for himself more. She's the one who gets him more involved with his family's business. He was content to throw it all away and work minimum wage at a trucking company. Yet, she got him to be more active or engaged in the fashion company. It's ironic because she then created the thing that she would come to hate.

Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club and Requiem for a Dream) also co-stars as Paolo Gucci, the son to Aldo and the cousin to Maurizio. He's himself a fashion designer. He's considered an idiot, the fool of the family who's not really taken seriously. It's through him that this film gets a lot of its comedy. It's when his character is introduced that I started to feel as if director Ridley Scott (Gladiator and Alien) intended for this film to be a comedy. If that was his intention, its comedic in the way that HBO's Succession (2018) wields its humor. Yet, even Succession doesn't have an over-the-top character who is as ridiculous as Paolo.

Succession is a series that is produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. Ferrell is a comedic actor from Saturday Night Live who is known for doing over-the-top characters. McKay is a director who has directed Ferrell in a couple of his films where he does an over-the-top character but McKay has since evolved into an Oscar-winner, known for The Big Short (2015) and Vice (2018), which are satires where the actors play their characters more seriously or more dramatically. This film feels like it could fit in those evolved McKay satires. Yet, Leto is doing an over-the-top Ferrell character that doesn't quite jive with the rest of it. On top of it all, his role in the overall narrative felt really superfluous.

The amount of time the film spends on Leto certainly felt superfluous. The film is too long and most, if not all the bits involving Leto's character could have been cut without any significant loss to the overall narrative. Again, that narrative is about understanding why Patrizia was responsible for Maurizio's murder. This film eventually does get into that understanding, but when it does, it feels rather rushed. Scott's film has the same problem here as his previous film The Last Duel (2021), which is the setup being too long and juggling too many things that are ultimately unnecessary.

Actually, this film could be a kind of companion piece to Scott's film previous to The Last Duel. Scott's All the Money in the World (2017) is similarly a docudrama about an Italian crime in the 1970's, which is where this film begins. All the Money in the World felt more focused and tighter. It's certainly not as long as this one. It seems as if this work should be a film noir in the vein of The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) where Lady Gaga is operating in the same mode as Lana Turner. This film starts out that way. Yet, the film gets away from her somehow.

Rated R for language, some sexual content, brief nudity and violence.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 38 mins.

In theaters.