By Emily-Rose Toohey
Last week, Ridley Scott’s extravagant film ‘House of Gucci’ made its way to Warwick Twin Cinema.
This is the renowned filmmaker’s second movie in 12 months, following the critical success of ‘The Last Duel’.
However, unlike ‘The Last Duel’, ‘House of Gucci’ doesn’t quite live up to the expectations of its predecessor or its extremely talented cast.
The stellar ensemble includes Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Jared Leto, Al Pacino, Salma Hayek, and Jeremy Irons.
It had promise: movie stars frolicking about Italy and acting out one of fashion’s most scandalise stories.
Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to this promise.
The film follows the real life story of the Gucci family and the iconic brand’s power rise.
Lady Gaga portrays Patrizia Reggiani, a woman who marries into the Gucci family (Maurizio Gucci, Adam Driver’s character) and the elaborate ups and downs of their marriage.
The result?
Well, it ends with murder.
Gaga’s character orchestrates the death of her ex-husband after their divorce – a crime for which she serves serious jail time.
However, despite this intrigue, the film simply does not work.
It has its fun moments, including a whacky soundtrack featuring George Michael’s ‘Faith’ playing as the lead couple gets married.
It also has the Italian scenery, the explosive wardrobe changes, and the cast’s talent to match it.
But then it falls face first into the biopic trope: a bland re-telling of the lives of it’s actually exciting real life people.
There are other, more serious problems with it too.
Firstly, there’s the Italian accents which are all over the place.
The inconsistencies are rife, with Gaga committing to her accent and Adam Driver’s accent being barely present.
Aside from this offence, without a doubt the worst part of this film is Jared Leto’s performance as Aldo Gucci.
He plays the role as a caricature or a cartoon, and is not even close to the real life man in both performance and obvious prosthetic make-up.
While this movie certainly does a lot, this particular instance is simply too much.
Despite its flaws, the film itself has its fun moments, but as a whole it’s an extremely mixed bag.
Nonetheless, it is still worth the watch, if only to form your own opinion of this divisive production.
‘House of Gucci’ is showing now at local cinemas.
