House Of Gucci (2021 We've read all the stories of how Lady Gaga's constant self-celebration may have deprived her of garnering a bunch of Best Actress nominations during this awards season.
That's a damn shame. After finally watching 'House Of Gucci', we say, you go, Gaga.....
In this three ring circus of a movie, she's the tightrope walker, trapeze artist and lion tamer all rolled up into one. And when she's on screen, (the center ring,) you can't look at anyone else.
Ridley Scott, that tireless maestro of ambitious epics, makes this one far more watchable and digestible than his previous film, the medieval he-said-she-said slog, "The Last Duel". He's smart enough to realize Gaga's the MVP here but not smart enough to figure out what kind of movie he's making...either circus-like semi comic opera or a solemn gaze at a collapsing dynasty.....a la the "Godfather" trilogy.
( You can pick up the Coppola 'Godfather' vibes as you watch Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons as the elder Gucci brothers......they resemble the old guys whom young Al Pacino had bumped off during the christening scene in the first 'Godfather....)
So for close to 2 hours and 40 minutes, the film veers back and forth between cavorting like an overripe pulp melodrama and then tamping it all down as if to say, "Oh wait a minute, this is serious stuff we're dealing with..."
We much preferred the over-the-top opera mode, with Lady G doing a combo of Lady Macbeth, Lucretia Borgia, Liz Taylor and Sophia Loren. Playing the the lower middle class, ferocious firecracker Patrizia Reggiani she's a stitch to watch as she stalks, woos and marries fashion scion Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver).
Throughout the rest of the film, Patrizia's many schemes, machinations and maneuvers to propel Maurizio and the Gucci brand into fashion world supremacy fall apart, one after the other. For all her Lady Macbeth-ing, she deeply underestimates Maurizio's ability to transform from the feckless naif she married to a full fledged, ruthless, cold hearted Gucci. Not one to be undone after he takes up with another woman and divorces her, Patrizia goes full Borgia on his ass......(all of this a well documented true story....)
The fun of all this is watching Gaga hurl herself into this role as if she's performing a Super Bowl halftime show that goes on for several hours.....(by the finale, , she's even swarmed by the papa...papa.....paparazzi.) But let's also give credit to Adam Driver, who anchors the movie when it chooses to do one of its hairpin turns into serious drama. While LG's playing to the balcony, his more subtle, nuanced work finally displays how deep and thick the Gucci blood runs.
Returning to the 3 ring circus analogy, the clown contingent arrives in Jaret Leto's startling portrayal of Paolo Gucci, the clueless, hapless, dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks Gucci cousin with sad delusions of adequacy. Slathered with gallons of plastic, prosthetic makeup and delivering his lines in an operatic sing-song tenor, he looks and sounds like an escapee from the "Nightmare Alley" carnival midway. (So Ridley Scott really can't grouse about why some critics didn't take this film seriously...)
Far from a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination, but we salute Ridley Scott's continued goal to lay out a 12 course cinematic meal that's features something tasty for everybody to sample. So maybe Gaga's too full of herself and so maybe this movie can't ever find a consistent tone.......it's still a crazy feast to gorge on and you shouldn't miss it.. 3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2)
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