House of Gucci
Ten Second Review: Unintentionally funny but far too long to be truly enjoyable or recommendable.
The great John Waters once said, “To understand bad taste, one must have very good taste.”
He is, as you might expect, completely right.
Taking a whistle stop tour of the marriage and history of the marriage of Maurizio Gucci and Patrizia Reggiani, House of Gucci details their meeting, their relationship and her orchestration of his murder. It also spends some time on the internal politics of the Gucci family.
If this film does one thing well, it’s that it very clearly tells us that Ridley Scott has bad good taste. The most mediocre of music choices really underline the lack of risk he takes here and some up the film in its entirety; the bare minimum of work to make something passable. He is fortunately saved by some excellent acting from a few parties doing the absolute most with the trash they were given. It strikes me that he should concern himself less with why people aren’t seeing his films in the numbers he believes should and reinvest that time into making better films.
I’m not going to rag on Scott too much more. He’s clearly joining the ranks of once great visionaries of culture, now unable to catch any more lightning in a bottle and shouting at the world for not looking intently with the same awe and zeal at his empty vessel. It also might show that he has been over-credited for the successes of other creative visionaries who have contributed to his films. If the direction of the Alien franchise didn’t tell us this, his films this year and recent press are the final nails.
On the upside, Gaga pits in a great performance. She is bolstered by Adam Driver and some nice work from Jeremy Irons and Al Pacino. The supporting cast were also by and large quite good too. It does make you wonder what this group could have done with a script that was consistently well written as opposed to occasional highlights interspersed between paint by numbers voids. Just to be clear, when it was good writing it was great, there was just far too little good writing. Why was more of it not built on the snappy and sharp dialogue that the actors did so well with.
There needs to be special mention of Leto’s performance. I don’t understand why he did what he did. I don’t know why they let him. I don’t know why no one stopped him. It was bad, it felt out of place and it added so much runtime to something that didn’t need more runtime. It certainly didn’t need him in the capacity it used him.
My greatest disappointment was the lack of fashion in the film. I could quibble about format inconsistencies that would have helped audiences, or some smaller stylistic choices, but where was the fashion? If you are going to resist clear dates, then use runways as a central theme to show the passage of time. It would have given the film a specific visual identity but most importantly offered a rich basis for drama and aesthetics. Leave it to this straight white dude to take the story of a murder at the top of the fashion industry, mostly leave out fashion, mostly leave out murder and make it impressively dull.
I could not in good consciousness tell you to spend money to see this for the few excellent bits that are dotted throughout. I’m sure that within weeks there will be a super-cut of the films highlights on YouTube. Generally I would not condone that, but since everyone has already been paid, as few people as possible should have to suffer it’s low points.