The true-crime story that’s the main narrative engine of director Ridley Scott’s haute-couture potboiler, revolving around the who, what, when, where, and why of the murder of Maurizio Gucci (played by Adam Driver) on March 27, 1995. It involves broken hearts, adultery, jealousy, public temper tantrums, a celebrity psychic, revenge, haggling with hit men and, ultimately, the former head of Gucci lying dead from gunshot wounds on the steps of his office building in Milan. In other words, it’s an extra-large glass of juice served with lots of pulp.
A fable about the rise, fall, and resurrection of a fashion empire, detailing the various backroom deals, backstabbing’s and Machiavellian business moves that helped turn Gucci into a billion-dollar enterprise and also, according to end-credits disclaimer, an industry powerhouse that no longer involves a single person with the name Gucci. The movie talks about a family-feud melodrama, with numerous members of the famous Italian clan clawing and hissing at their relatives, then forgiving them until it’s time for the next bitchy, undermining comment or betrayal.
All hail to the famous Gagas: It is impossible to underestimate what Lady Gaga brings to both the role of Patrizia Reggiani, the daughter of a middle-class business owner who marries into the Gucci family, and to House of Gucci itself. From the second she skids her car into a parking space and sashays across a dirt field — find someone who loves you the way the camera loves her strut — the lady owns the film. No one can be blamed for thinking the movie’s campier moments might originate from her, given the singer’s love of excess, spectacle, and the knowing of winks in regard to her day job. And certainly, by the time the movie has her and Driver violently fucking on an office desk to the sound of opera, then smash-cutting to a wedding procession, you’ll feel that faith has been rewarded. Somewhere out there, John Waters is slow-clapping.
But that’s not what makes her the saving grace here. Gaga is the only person who seems to understand that the movie not only needs a well-developed sense of irony and a tongue firmly lolling in its heavily made-up cheek — it also needs someone who knows when to take it deadly serious. The fact that she can do both at the drop of fashionable hat, along with a canny instinct for when to turn the star power on full-blast and when to play things closer to terra firma, keeps things giddy and steady. And while some have glommed on to the fact that Gaga kept her accent for months on end as a way to keep the character in her head, it bears mentioning that her Italian accent is the only one that doesn’t strike you as forced, wobbly, or offensively outlandish. In fact, she’s often the only one who makes you feel as if you’re observing someone play a character, period.
There are people who star in movies, and people who are movie stars. Gaga already proved she belonged in that second category with A Star Is Born, which demonstrated she could carry a movie and didn’t have to rely on her stage persona for charisma. But she was playing a singer, naysayers said, so who knows if she’s got range or more than one great performance in her? We now have an answer. With House of Gucci, you get a jumble of stories jockeying for screen time, and then you get a supernova blazing at the center of all of it that burns everything superfluous away. If the film is remembered for anything, it’s for being Exhibit A as what a great actor she is. Forget Gucci. Long live the house that Gaga built.
