Director Report Card: Ridley Scott (2022) Part Two

27. House of Gucci

At this point in his career, I imagine Ridley Scott can do whatever he wants. Maybe he can't single-handedly green light a big budget “Alien” movie but he has his own production company. A-list actors want to work with him. He’s a respected auteur who has been at this for fifty years. So one can only assume that Ridley Scott wants to make a movie like “House of Gucci.” From a distance, the film looks like nothing but the most blatant of Oscar Bait. It’s a true story about family, money, sex, and murder, set in the prestigious world of fashion that plays out over the course of several decades. I can’t blame Scott for wanting an Oscar but, if that was the plan, it didn’t work. “House of Gucci” would receive only one nomination at the 2022 Academy Awards. 

Beginning in late seventies Italy, the film follows Patrizia Regiani. Despite being the daughter of a successful trucking company owner, Patrizia longs to be more. At a party, she meets Maurizio, the two quickly falling for each other. Maurizio is the son of Rudolfo Gucci, the co-owner of the iconic Gucci fashion company. Rudolfo initially disapproves of Maurizio marrying Patrizia but they are accepted by the other branches of the rich family. Soon, they become involved in the family in-fighting over that money and the direction of the famous brand. As scandal continues to circle the Gucci name, Maurizio grows interested in another woman… And Patrizia starts planning to hire a hit man.

Not too long into “House of Gucci,” there’s a scene where Patrizia slips on a slinky negligee and invites Maurizio, who has been working in the sun all day, into the office. The two proceed to enthusiastically bang on the desk. It’s a ridiculous, overheated moment. That’s when something clicked in my brain and I went “Oh, this is opera.” Scott is operating in the same mode here as he did in “Hannibal.” (A film that is also, maybe coincidentally, set in Italy.) The characters are exaggerated, the melodrama runs hot, and the story is concerned with twisted passion, perverse greed, and familial entanglement. In fact, “House of Gucci” seems to rather intentionally ride this tone into the realm of campy comedy. That would certainly explain why everyone in the movie talks with goofy “Mama Mia, that’s-a spicy meatball!” accents. I’m pretty sure all of this is suppose to be funny. 

I opened this review by asking why Ridley Scott chose to make Oscar Bait but, after watching the movie, it’s easy to figure out, Comedy or not, “House of Gucci” tackles some of the themes that Scott has been fascinated with all his career. Namely, Daddy Issues and family backstabbing. Maurizio and his father have a tense relationship, as Rudolfo can’t help but be reminded of his dead wife every time he looks at his boy. When he chooses to marry a woman his dad considers a gold-digger, it just furthers the resentment between them. In-between this and all the talk of betrayal and cash, “House of Gucci” almost feels like a spiritual sequel to “All the Money in the World.”

So “House of Gucci” definitely feels like a Ridley Scott movie. Does it look like one too? Pretty much. By this point in his career, Scott’s dynamic visual style has degraded into a recognizable series of quirks. There’s lots of overcast skies all throughout the film. The drab color saturation is sometimes turned up on the other end of the scale, when Scott wants to emphasize the heat of the Italian midday sun. There’s some interior shots lit by the warm glow of the fireplace too, to provide some of those “Barry Lyndon” vibes that Ridley loves so much. The moment that most reminded me of Scott’s glory days is Maurizio and Patrizia’s date on a row boat, the early morning fog rolling off the water. That was pretty. But the film’s cinematography is definitely more “Exodus” than “Blade Runner.”

If you really want to reach, “House of Gucci” slides in easily next to “All the Money in the World” and “American Gangsters” to form a thematic trilogy. Greed, the haves versus the have-nots, and rise-and-fall story structures all connect these movies. Yet those other Scott movies have kidnappings and an ear being sliced off, exciting shoot-outs and drug deals gone wrong. Most of “House of Gucci” is devoted to long discussions about stocks and business deals. It gets tiresome quickly, especially when spread out over a 158 minute runtime. The film seems to find the behind-the-scenes business decisions of the Gucci empire or people trying to grasp a larger share of the company’s stocks fascinating. The audience — or this viewer anyway — definitely does not.

As I waded through “House of Gucci’s” indeterminable runtime and a script that feels both bloated and underwritten, I tried to find something interesting to latch onto. Patrizia’s story arc is the best thing I could find. She begins the film as the daughter of a successful businessman but it’s not enough for her, as she still feels disrespected in her day-to-day life. The minute she sees how rich Maurizio’s family is, she becomes determined to grab more for herself. She’s constantly telling her husband to get more involved in the business, hatching schemes to seize more control of the Gucci corporation. She’s essentially a femme fatale, plotting and seducing and eventually murdering. But she’s a sympathetic one too, who hopes to escape her middle class upbringing and is determined to hold onto that standing once she achieves it.

That’s an interesting character to center your movie around, especially once you add a degree of ambiguity to the material. Does Patrizia really love Maurizio or is she truly just after his money? It’s a question that runs through the entire film, as even the murder-prompting revenge is motivated as much by her getting cut out of the family as it is his infidelity. Yet if this was meant to be a compelling grey streak throughout, perhaps the film should’ve developed the love story a little more. After only a few meetings, Patrizia and Maurizio are getting married. It seems like the script deliberately skips over most of the important scenes in their relationship. Their children barely get any focus at all and they seem at each other’s throats as often as they are in love. “House of Gucci” probably would’ve worked better overall if the film invested more time or passion into its central romance. 

But the movie’s inability to decide what it’s actually about is a problem it has the entire time. Let’s look at its most unnecessary subplot. Rudolfo’s brother, Aldo, co-owns Gucci. His son, Paolo, fancies himself a fashion designer despite his garish taste. His uncle violently rejects his designs and his father dismisses him as an idiot. Paolo becomes a stooge in Patrizia’s plot to consolidate the family’s riches, his attempt to launch his own brand derailed by a police investigation. If you think that scene must rank as the movie’s most farcical (and one of the few times it is genuinely funny), that’s before we see Aldo and Paolo arguing about washing dishes after the former is released from prison. What does any of this stuff contribute to the film’s overall plot? Not a whole hell of a lot. “House of Gucci” is full of digressive episodes like this, the script’s attention wandering off to bootleg bags, Patrizia’s friendship with a psychic, Tom Ford becoming part of the company, or Mauirizo’s affairs abroad. The movie’s focus is so scattered that the inevitable murder scene ends up feeling like more of an afterthought than a proper climax. 

The unnecessary quality of Paolo’s subplot is not the only reason I muttered “what the fuck is Jared Leto doing in this movie?” while watching “House of Gucci.” Rather than gaining a bunch of weight and giving himself gout again, Hollywood’s most insufferable proponent of the Method is buried under makeup and latex to play Paolo. Leto’s performance is the most exaggerated and cartoonish in a film already full of ghastly overacting. Perhaps because he wanted the audience to notice his capital-A Acting under the prosthetics, Leto effects a Mario accent and overdoes every single line and expression. The character is ridiculous, and Leto is too, but there’s little campy joy among all the flop sweat. The make-up is pretty good, insomuch that Leto is unrecognizable. Yet one must ask why they expended so much time and money making a handsome actor look like a balding, fat guy instead of just hiring one of Hollywood’s many capable balding, fat actors.

Like I said, overacting is the game of the day in “House of Gucci.” Leto has a lot of competition for the title of sweatiest performance in this movie. At first, his casting in this movie looked like another stop on Al Pacino’s late career tour to redeem himself as one of his generation’s greatest actors. Instead, it’s more of the hideous overacting that we’ve come to expect from Al, only missing a hooah or two to be more depressingly muggy. While Pacino and Leto aim for camp, Jeremy Irons seems genuinely conflicted. He’s pulled between the movie’s parade of goofy accents and an attempt to ground the material in some actual emotion. It’s a rare miss for the great actor and a shame too, as Irons is delightful when in bitchy mode. Instead he seems adrift. This is also true of Salma Hayek, another performer who is great at going over-the-top but stuck in a small, thin part here. 

Which brings me to the movie’s leads. Lady Gaga gained most of the movie’s critical praise as Patrizia. Gaga is certainly adapt at a certain type of fiery passion, which is well-served in a few scenes. Yet the script’s stubborn refusal to give any of its characters’ more of an inner life makes Gaga’s posturing seem like nothing but empty theater. And, try as she might, she can’t make the ludicrous accent anything but laughable. Starring opposite her, and in his second co-billing collab with Ridley Scott in 2021, is Adam Driver. While everyone around him overdoes it, Driver goes in the opposite direction. His Maurizio is calm and understated, even when he’s pissed off or horny. Maybe that’s why Driver and Gaga’s chemistry never quite feels like you’d expect it to.

By the way, most of the people depicted in the film are still alive and had largely negative things to say about it. In hopes of not endorsing the actual murderers, the filmmakers never reached out to the real Patrizia or her co-conspirators. Meanwhile, Tom Ford questioned the taste in turning a real life murder into such a tawdry tale. Critics were split — which is probably why only the Academy’s Hair and Make-Up branch felt compelled to spotlight the film — but at least it did better at the box office than Scott’s other 2021 release. Ultimately, “House of Gucci” is a misfire. The film aims for campy humor but good comedy is precise and well-paced, while this movie is unfocused and meandering. This story easily could’ve been trashy tabloid fun but Scott’s focus on the financial side of things drains the narrative of most of its sensationalism, forcing the cast to flounder theatrically. [Grade: C-]