Adam Driver is one of the best actors in the world right now, which made the overall product of "House of Gucci" all the more disappointing.
Biographical pictures are right in my wheelhouse. People complain too much about the significance of movies based on true stories. As long as there's a story that's even remotely interesting, I say make a movie about it.
The Gucci fashion empire is definitely interesting enough to warrant a movie with a monster cast, especially for a viewer like me who is curious about the inner workings of high-end fashion but owns one suit that collects dust in the closet until wedding season rolls around.
"House of Gucci" was a massive swing and a miss. Because this is a biopic, I won't hold back on spoilers. However, I don't recommend seeing this anyway.
The film is about a woman who infiltrates the Gucci family before being cut out, which leads to her hiring a hitman to kill her husband to regain control of his estate. Patrizia Reggiani, played by Lady Gaga, was the mind behind the murder of Maurizio Gucci, the last member of the Gucci family with a controlling stake in the fashion company.
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Maurizio, played by Driver, and Patrizia successfully weeded the family out of their company shares behind manipulation and slimy tactics. Once Maurizio was in total control, he cut ties with Patrizia, sending her into an emotional spiral.
Driver and Gaga were fantastic on screen together. Driver added another excellent performance to his loaded resume while Gaga proved her performance in "A Star is Born" wasn't a fluke. Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons also played significant roles in "House of Gucci," and we're far from the problem.
Where "House of Gucci" went wrong was its pacing and length. If you had read the synopsis before seeing the movie, you would've expected a film about the murder of Maurizio Gucci. That didn't happen until the last 10 minutes of the two-and-a-half-hour film. I do not care what Director Ridley Scott believes needs to be in this movie, but throwing the supposed climax in a footnote at the end is total garbage.
I don't care for Scott. I think he's a pretentious director that made his bones and thinks he can make unsavory comments about the film industry. He's been vocal about moviegoers and their inability to appreciate some of his work. He once blamed millennials and their lack of attention span for some of his movies flopping at the box office.
Scott can say whatever he wants as long as his work backs him up. There might be some truth to a younger audience not jiving with a traditional style of filmmaking. That being said, he took an awful approach to "House of Gucci."
This is one of the more bland-looking movies I've ever seen. It's a film about fashion, and I thought I was going to fall asleep. I thought something was wrong with the theater screen because it physically looked so dull. Do you want to know why Scott's movies aren't doing well at the box office in 2021? Because he made a two and half hour movie that looked like the color beige.
Scott will sit in one of his several houses and complain that millennials are passing on his movie to see something like "Eternals" or "Venom" instead. He'll pass on taking any accountability for his mistakes and just blame people he deems not intelligent enough to stay focused on his boring film.
Lastly, "House of Gucci" has zero sense of direction. I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be serious or lighthearted. There was no consistency between the actors. Irons, Driver and Gaga were extremely serious, while Pacino and Jared Leto were campy. That's the fault of the director.
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I gave "House of Gucci" a 59/100. Driver and Gaga deserved better than this.
