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If “ The Godfather ” and “Succession” had an ostentatious lovechild, it would look something like Ridley Scott ’s “House of Gucci,” the master’s sweeping yet wildly imbalanced rendering of the titular and celebrated fashion empire’s scandalous history, full of backstabbing, betrayal, greed, and even murder.

Based on the book by Sara Gay Forden , it’s a spicy enough foundation that comes with sufficient amounts of flamboyance, one that sees Lady Gaga convert into an ambitiously tacky character, features an unrecognizable Jared Leto dialing yet another transformative shtick up to eleven, and contains plenty of exaggerated English-spoken-with-an-Italian-accents that stretch and twist random words through cutely fluctuating emphases on every other syllable. “Then what’s the problem,” you might rightfully ask about a campy package that sounds wholly entertaining on a fashion-soaked, star-studded, feast-for-the-eyes canvas? It’s perhaps helpful to quote a character here, who assigns the shorthand of “a movie set” to the propped and preppy Ralph Lauren, “a rock concert” to the vibrant showiness of Versace, and “the Vatican of fashion” to the refined legacy of Gucci. Now, imagine all these dissimilar looks on a hodgepodge runway that’s supposed to reflect the voice of a single designer. That confusing collection is “House of Gucci,” a film that would have benefited from a coherent silhouette and a little hemming of its tiresome runtime.

Still, Scott’s soapy epic—his second cinematic outing this year after the superior (and also partly campy) “ The Last Duel ”—isn’t exactly a bore, thanks to a number of its actors (like Leto) unafraid to lean into the film’s kitschy tone as well as some fearless moments—like one sensationally go-for-broke sex scene—that meet them at that amplified level.

A fierce Lady Gaga leads the pack in an uneven performance, portraying Patrizia Reggiani—an assertive young woman from limited means who falls in love with and marries Maurizio Gucci (a disproportionately subdued Adam Driver ), the dreamboat scion of the fashion house. When Patrizia gets rejected by shy Maurizio’s traditional and haughty father Rodolfo ( Jeremy Irons )—he quietly shames Patrizia’s lack of cultural finesse—she finds a welcome ally in Uncle Aldo ( Al Pacino ). He is the quality and class-insistent Rodolfo’s calculating brother, with a commercialist attitude that differs from his sibling’s when it comes to reviving Gucci’s flailing image in the ‘70s and rising above the brand’s whispered-about financial hardship.

Also in the mix is Aldo’s son Paolo, brought to life by Jared Leto, whose outrageous (and extremely fun) gaudiness single-handedly earns the aforesaid “rock concert” analogy. Leto’s approach to the role instantly proves apt for Paolo, an incompetent businessman wannabe and an aspiring fashion designer with little taste and even less talent. Spite and bad-blood brew amongst the clan throughout the story that spans three decades, especially after Patrizia sneakily talks Maurizio out of his law school dreams, muscles her way into the family business, and turns her husband against pretty much every member of the family. Through it all, Salma Hayek ’s naive psychic Pina guides the increasingly distraught queen-bee Patrizia with prophecies about the future, lending the film some of its most hysterical scenes.

If only the cast could decide what kind of a movie they were all in. You could say Adam Driver is excellent in the role of Maurizio, but his measured mannerisms feel so out-of-step with the version of “House of Gucci” that Leto or Hayek seem to think they’re in—in that regard, he operates in an entirely different movie, one that Lady Gaga occasionally joins in when she’s not on a different wavelength. You sense this tonal inconsistency elsewhere too, throughout the script by Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna that alternates between a stern drama and a goofily heightened melodrama with a perverse sense of humor that scores various laughs, many of them unintentional. It’s only when the film has the audacity to embrace the latter part of its split personality that “House of Gucci” works, even soars. But that confidence unfortunately doesn’t come to fruition often. The resulting film rapidly loses steam in its last act, while it tails the ill-fated and once vulnerable Maurizio as he willingly steps to the dark side of his powers like a Michael Corleone with slicker fashion sense and revitalizes Gucci as the multi-billion-dollar premier designer we know today. ( Reeve Carney makes a good up-and-coming Tom Ford in these segments.)

Unsurprisingly, visual design is how “House of Gucci” leaves its strongest impression. With a story set across Rome, Milan, New York and even the Alps—where Maurizio and Patrizia vacation, and an incredible Camille Cottin makes an appearance as Maurizio’s romantic-interest-to-be—the movie highlights the luxury and lavishness of the Gucci lifestyle with grace and utmost attention to detail through Arthur Max ’s intricate production design. (Most of the film was apparently shot in and around Rome as well as the storied Cinnecitta for the interiors.) Costumer Janty Yates predictably comes out of the project as its MVP, especially in the way she sculpts Lady Gaga’s Gina Lollobrigida-esque looks and character journey—from her early flouncy unworldliness to her sharply cut outfits and later on, vulgar getups—and informs the actor’s performance that veers into something animalistic. Perhaps more impressively, the designer’s impeccable suiting (made mostly bespoke by a NY-based tailor, with additional pieces by Ermenegildo Zegna) brings out the neatly combed Driver’s masculine elegance in a way no film ever has.

But these visuals are just a special-effects of sorts, elements that keep “House of Gucci” on its feet when the film trips on its overlong train elsewhere. You come to it for a sophisticated boutique experience, but what you walk out of feels awfully close to an overstuffed department store.

Available only in theaters starting November 24th.

Tomris Laffly

Tomris Laffly is a freelance film writer and critic based in New York. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), she regularly contributes to RogerEbert.com , Variety and Time Out New York, with bylines in Filmmaker Magazine, Film Journal International, Vulture, The Playlist and The Wrap, among other outlets.

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House of Gucci (2021)

Rated R for language, some sexual content, and brief nudity and violence.

158 minutes

Lady Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani

Adam Driver as Maurizio Gucci

Jared Leto as Paolo Gucci

Jeremy Irons as Rodolfo Gucci

Al Pacino as Aldo Gucci

Salma Hayek as Giuseppina "Pina" Auriemma

Camille Cottin as Paola Franchi

Jack Huston as Domenico De Sole

Ridley Scott

Writer (based on the book by)

Sara Gay Forden

Writer (story by)

Becky Johnston
Roberto Bentivegna

Cinematographer

Dariusz Wolski
Claire Simpson
Harry Gregson-Williams

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‘House of Gucci’ Review: Murder, Italian-Style

Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino and Jared Leto serve up a heaping platter of prosciutto in Ridley Scott’s tale of family treachery.

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By A.O. Scott

The kindest thing I can say about “House of Gucci” — and also the cruelest — is that it should have been an Italian movie. Set mostly in Milan, it spins out a sprawling, chaotic, borderline-operatic tale of family feuding, sexual jealousy and capitalist intrigue, with plenty of drinks, cigarettes and snacks (the carpaccio comes highly recommended). Also cars, shoes, hats, sport coats, handbags, dresses, lingerie — whatever you want!

But for all that abundance, something is missing. A lot of things, really, but mostly a strong idea and a credible reason for existing. The true story of how the Gucci family lost control of the company that still bears its name — and of how its scion, Maurizio Gucci, lost his life to a hit man’s bullets — could have inspired Bernardo Bertolucci to heights of decadent spectacle, Luchino Visconti to flights of dialectical extravagance or Lina Wertmuller to feats of perverse ideological analysis. The raw material plays as tragedy and farce at the same time.

The actual director, Ridley Scott, possesses ample style and impressive craft, but at least this time around seems to be lacking the necessary vision or inspiration. (His underrated “All the Money in the World” was a tougher, tarter treatment of similar material.) The script, by Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna (based on Sara Gay Forden’s book ), has a repetitive, wheel-spinning quality. Most of the scenes consist of Guccis yelling at other Guccis — in Milan and New York, amid the Alps and near a lake, in hotels and conference rooms and villas and cafes. The shouting, in heavily accented English, lasts from the early ’70s to the mid-90s, and you can tell what year it is by scrutinizing the clothes and haircuts. For a while it seems like the music cues (David Bowie, Eurythmics) might also help, but at some point in the ’80s the playlist gets scrambled.

About those Guccis. You’ve heard of ham? Well, this is a family-size salumi platter. Adam Driver is relatively restrained as Maurizio, who as a law student meets Patrizia Reggiani at a party, where she charmingly mistakes him for a bartender. She comes from a less exalted family — her father owns a small trucking company — and she is played by Lady Gaga with the verve of an Anna Magnani avatar in a Super Mario video game.

This is fun for a while — the movie is more than two and a half hours long — and Gaga and Driver have an interesting chemistry. Maurizio is quiet and a little passive, but Patrizia nudges him toward a bolder idea of himself. He defies his aristocratic father, Rodolfo (an impeccable, sepulchral Jeremy Irons), who regards Patrizia as a social climber and a gold digger. He isn’t altogether wrong, but Maurizio marries her anyway, and finds brief happiness working for his in-laws, trading in his cut-to-measure suits for proletarian coveralls. He plays soccer and horses around with the other drivers and mechanics during lunch break until Patrizia summons him to the office to attend to his conjugal duties. It’s pretty hot stuff.

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House of Gucci Reviews

pure tabloid, guilty pleasure goodness. If you are a faithful devotee of Scott’s work, then you will be happy to see him emerge from the existential crisis of dread in the face of death to enthusiastic diving into the shallow end of the pool.

Full Review | Jun 10, 2024

Lady Gaga’s extraordinary turn as Patrizia Reggiani steals the show...

Full Review | May 28, 2024

Lady Gaga, Adam Driver & Pacino are amazing in this Jared Leto Sounds like Mario when he jumps off a cliff and dies & The production Design was very Gucci! Alongside the make up and costumes!

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

Are you supposed to laugh during a true-crime film about the Gucci family losing their fashion empire?

House of Gucci fails to work on two levels. First, as a historical family drama, and second, as a campy, good time. What’s left is a lumbering movie that’s unable to offer an interesting look into the Gucci dynasty.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

House of Gucci attempts to be a board room thriller and TV show dynasty production; in theory, this sounds acceptable, but neither writer crafts a captivating scenario.

Full Review | Jun 5, 2023

[Ridley] Scott resorts to a format closer to a soap opera by using and abusing a series of gimmicks... [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2/10 | Dec 19, 2022

Much like Leto’s performance, House of Gucci is likely to polarise audiences. It is glamourous and gaudy but also tedious and tiresome and, for what is supposed to be a compelling crime story, the result is a confusing mess.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 12, 2022

With any other cast, House of Gucci would have been a subpar movie, floundering through the ripped-from-the-headlines intrigue of a murder-for-hire, but with this cast, Ridley Scott has created a wickedly fun romp.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Sep 24, 2022

This is more than a film about fashion; this film is an Italian family epic in much the same style as THE GODFATHER, but based on a true story.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Sep 18, 2022

House of Gucci shifts through several tones as it spotlights the dark side of power, pleasure, and privilege, but it’s anchored by an endlessly entertaining ensemble - and specifically, the supernova star that is Lady Gaga.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 1, 2022

For about two-thirds of “House of Gucci” I was onboard....But everything comes to a screeching halt in that third act and the movie suffers for it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 16, 2022

This film could have been all that, could have been an Oscar contender. It has so much going for it. Big fashion, true crime, and so much name-dropping. But it goes right off the rails in its second half...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 15, 2022

No plans to re-watch, did not enjoy, way too long, convoluted…laughed, was camp!

Full Review | Aug 4, 2022

They let this go to print? Surely not...

A ruthless portrait of Patrizia Reggiani's ambitions... the real center of this story that is cruel towards her at the end, but also towards us. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jun 21, 2022

While these performances will probably doom the film come awards season, they are the movie’s saving grace. The sheer silliness of the proceedings neutralize the film’s attempts at plumbing the dark side of wealth and the corruption...

Full Review | May 10, 2022

The campy scenes make the straight drama scenes feel under-energized and dull, while the straight drama scenes make the campy scenes feel over the top and unintentionally hilarious.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | May 10, 2022

Textually it is like a tabloid newspaper. Visually its fine art. More often than not the two do not blend together well.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Apr 1, 2022

Scott's proposal seems entertaining to me when he brings together a handful of luxury actors to narrate, with a fine and glamorous tone, the melodrama of that fashion dynasty fragmented by greed, betrayal and family grudges. Full review in Spanish

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Apr 1, 2022

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Lady gaga and adam driver in ridley scott’s ‘house of gucci’: film review.

Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons and Al Pacino also star in this true-crime saga of the turbulent years that led to the murder of Maurizio Gucci, head of the eponymous Milan fashion house.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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It pains me to say these words about anything, but House of Gucci is begging to be a Ryan Murphy series. At least then we might actually know whether its frequent lurches into acidic camp were intentional. Ridley Scott ’s film is a trashtacular watch that I wouldn’t have missed for the world. But it fails to settle on a consistent tone — overlong and undisciplined as it careens between high drama and opera buffa. “I had no idea I married a monster,” hisses Lady Gaga as the embittered Patrizia Reggiani, once her marriage to fashion scion Maurizio Gucci has soured. “You didn’t,” shoots back Adam Driver in the latter role. “You married a Gucci.”

House of Gucci

Release date : Wednesday, Nov. 24 Cast : Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons, Jack Huston, Salma Hayek, Al Pacino, Camille Cottin, Reeve Carney Director : Ridley Scott Screenwriters : Becky Johnson, Roberto Bentivegna; story by Johnson, based on the book by Sara Gay Forden

Say what you will about the Ryan Murphy factory, but at least he dives in with an unstinting commitment to lurid excess, making him an ideal fit for real-life stories of murder most foul and fashionable. (Just watch the insane Judith Light episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace for a prime example.) Scott seems oddly unsure of himself here, not helped by the clunky dialogue of Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna’s pedestrian script. Nor possibly by the challenges of shooting a decades-spanning, globe-trotting ensemble drama during a pandemic. Even less so by a cast with little cohesion but no shortage of scenery chompers.

Alongside the inevitably fabulous period costume and production design, the high point is Gaga’s full-tilt performance, even — or perhaps especially — when she morphs into Steven Van Zandt on The Sopranos while ordering a hit on her estranged husband. (My partner has been narrowing his eyes and pointing a finger at me, snarling, “Don’t meese” ever since the trailer dropped.)

In a performance more often than not dialed up to 110, Gaga puts on a transfixing show, bringing fierce charisma and ferocious drive to Patrizia, an accountant at her family’s trucking company who married Maurizio Gucci in 1972 and had him gunned down by a hitman in 1995. Even when she’s just lighting a cigarette or stirring an espresso, Gaga hurls herself into the character with savage gusto. Whenever she’s onscreen, the movie bristles with electricity. By contrast, Driver — in his second consecutive project for Scott after The Last Duel — is quite subdued, crafting a complex character by more nuanced means. That puts the two leads pretty much in different movies.

Then there are the supporting players, led by Jeremy Irons as Maurizio’s suave snob of a father, the former actor Rodolfo, with an accent that drifts between Italian and standard Oxbridge. On quite another level is the prosciutto face-off between Al Pacino and Jared Leto as Maurizio’s exuberant Uncle Aldo and his idiot son Paolo, respectively. Leto wins that contest by a mile with a clownish fat-suit-and-prosthetics performance that’s simply astonishing. And not in a good way. “My life has been hard, really hard. I haven’t sheet in a week,” he whines, in a line not untypical of a character who seems obsessed with defecation. “Never confuse sheet with cioccolato ,” he notes later, apropos of what, I couldn’t say.

I guess Gaga and Pacino can play the Italian American card, but really, House of Gucci should carry the equivalent of an animal welfare disclaimer, stating: “No Italians were involved in the making of this film.” It’s a hellhole of wobbly accents.

That said, it’s never more fun than when Gaga’s Patrizia is scheming with her friend Pina (Salma Hayek), a low-rent TV psychic and cat lady, to claw back her dwindling influence within the Gucci family and, eventually, to ice Maurizio. Their spa-day scene, in which grave matters are discussed in mud baths, is a hoot. “When we get back from the Caymans, we can do a nice evil eye on him,” suggests Pina, initially trying to put the brakes on the murder plan. The delicious inside joke of Hayek being married to François-Henri Pinault — CEO of Kering, the French luxury fashion conglomerate that now controls Gucci — will escape no one.

From her first appearance, it’s clear the movie belongs to Gaga as Patrizia sashays across her father’s trucking depot toward the office, poured into a snug dress and heels, soaking up the wolf whistles and leering comments of the drivers with evident pleasure. She meets Maurizio at a ritzy party in disco-era Milan and has stars in her eyes the minute she hears his surname.

She sets about putting herself in his path so often that he’s forced to ask her out; before long he’s introducing her to papà , Rodolfo, son of the fashion house founder Guccio Gucci. She can’t tell a Klimt from a Picasso, but Rodolfo finds Patrizia charming until Maurizio starts talking marriage, at which point he’s promptly disowned.

Based on Sara Gay Forden’s 2001 book of the same name, the script is reasonably sharp in exploring matters of class, exposing the Gucci clan as self-appointed royalty rather than legitimate aristocracy. Rodolfo finds Patrizia acceptable as a plaything for his son, but immediately judges her to be a gold digger when Maurizio ushers her into the family. That happens in a cheeky cut from the two of them madly humping on Patrizia’s office desk to her walking down the aisle in an elaborate bridal gown, mystifyingly accompanied by George Michael’s “Faith.” Because it’s a Catholic wedding, maybe?

In Driver’s restrained performance — either elegantly reserved or cagey, depending how you see him — we get intimate psychological access to Maurizio as the passion of the early years subsides and Patrizia’s vulgarity starts to chafe. This is notable in a ski resort scene in St. Moritz with his rich friends, including the woman who would replace Patrizia, Paola Franchi (Camille Cottin). The ultimate slap in the face comes when he gives Patrizia a Bloomingdale’s gift card for Christmas. Ouch. More of that kind of sly humor might have given the film some satirical bite.

Long before the cracks in their marriage become irreparable, Patrizia pushes Maurizio to overcome his ambivalence about joining the family firm, mending the rift with his father just in time to nab the old man’s majority stake in the company, albeit with some shifty moves. At first, she finds an ally in company chairman Uncle Aldo, as they zip back and forth between Milan and New York; and she manages to work around gauche dimwit Paolo, who has delusions of being a visionary designer. But when the two of them get in the way of Maurizio’s control, Patrizia declares, “It’s time to take out the trash.”

What she hasn’t accounted for is snake-in-the-grass family lawyer Domenico De Sole, an underwritten role in which Jack Huston barely registers — except to the extent that he resembles Tom Ford way more than does Reeve Carney, who briefly turns up in that role.

In the aforementioned St. Moritz scene, Patrizia responds to a question about the meringue treats she’s brought with a rambling monologue about a Paris trip with Maurizio. “You’re filling the story full of unnecessary details,” he tells her in a cutting dismissal. “They just want to know where you got the macaroons, sweetie.” In a sense that’s what Johnson and Bentivegna’s screenplay does. Given that this is a movie and not an ’80s miniseries, it’s too cluttered with busy plot tangents that keep taking us away from the macaroon of Patrizia and Maurizio’s crumbling relationship. Or maybe it’s just that the film’s energy plummets whenever Gaga’s off-camera.

Sure, it’s moderately interesting to learn of Aldo’s tax-evasion travails and the corporate chicanery that nudges him and Paolo out of the company when Maurizio partners with Bahrain finance group Investcorp. But Scott can’t squeeze much dramatic juice out of these developments. The same goes for the makeover after Gucci has become démodé and Texan wunderkind Ford (Carney) is brought in to revolutionize the house style — complete with a mercifully brief appearance from a bad Anna Wintour impersonator.

Despite frantic snatches of opera lobbed in among the random ’80s tracks by Eurythmics, David Bowie, Donna Summer, Blondie, etc., a sluggishness frequently creeps into the film, even when it should be gathering suspense as the anticipated (and anticlimactic) shooting of Maurizio approaches. Scott, who was first attached to the project in 2006, seems convinced he’s making something akin to The Godfather . But instead the action keeps sliding into inadvertent campiness, never more so than when Patrizia and Pina are negotiating with the hitmen.

Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski mixes glitz with a faded period look to underwhelming effect, but Arthur Max’s production design and Janty Yates’ costumes provide plenty of lavish detail. As does Gaga, who commands attention in a vehicle much more solely dependent on her than A Star Is Born , where the spotlight was shared equally with Bradley Cooper. Her work here may be chewy, but she’s enthrallingly alive in the role, bringing heat to Patrizia’s hunger and growing desperation in an otherwise muddled movie that seldom ignites.

Full credits

Distributor: United Artists Releasing Production companies: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, BRON Studios, Scott Free Productions Cast: Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons, Jack Huston, Salma Hayek, Al Pacino, Camille Cottin, Reeve Carney Director: Ridley Scott Screenwriters: Becky Johnson, Roberto Bentivegna; story by Johnson, based on the book by Sara Gay Forden Producers: Ridley Scott, Giannina Scott, Kevin J. Walsh, Mark Huffam Executive producers: Kevin Ulrich, Megan Ellison, Aidan Elliott, Marco Valerio Pugini, Aaron L. Gilbert, Jason Cloth Director of photography: Dariusz Wolski Production designer: Arthur Max Costume designer: Janty Yates Editor: Claire Simpson Music: Harry Gregson-Williams Casting: Kate Rhodes James

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House of Gucci Isn’t a Good Movie, But It’s Definitely a Good Time

Some movies leave you wanting to talk about the quality of the acting, but with House of Gucci , it feels more appropriate to discuss the amount . Even spread over an exorbitant two hours and 37 minutes, Ridley Scott’s second film in two months has more acting by volume than any other theatrical release this year. Its most prolific source is Jared Leto, who’s been encased in latex to play Paolo Gucci, the corduroy-loving lesser scion who tries to launch his own Gucci fashion line. It’s the rare performer who manages to out-big Al Pacino, but in scene after scene, Leto makes the acting legend, cast as Paolo’s father, Aldo, look downright restrained in his choices and his interpretation of an Italian accent. Pacino will do things like tell Jeremy Irons, playing Aldo’s brother and Gucci co-owner Rodolfo, “You need to deal with your saaahn !” and it comes across as a totally normal line-reading compared to Leto’s later singsong declaration that “My father is 70, he’s no spring CHEEECKEN .” When the two are together onscreen, their indulgences actually block each other out in an effect that’s probably a lot like the technology behind noise-canceling headphones. It frees your gaze to wander over the settings they’re in, which are usually rife with the kind of high-end ugliness that only the very rich can achieve.

Gucci is a label built on a carefully concocted air of tasteful luxury, but House of Gucci is a movie that mostly understands itself to be high-end trash. No one onscreen has a better grasp of this than Lady Gaga, who plays Patrizia Reggiani, the hot-blooded upstart who marries into the family and starts Lady Macbeth-ing it up, only to end up arranging a hit on her ex-husband, Maurizio (Adam Driver), after their divorce expels her from under the aegis of the green and red. There’s a touch of Nomi Malone to Gaga’s performance, which is fueled by a barely disguised ravenousness, a desire to eat the world in one determined bite. Patrizia is voluptuously vulgar, with her wiggle dresses and ever-more-voluminous hair, the daughter of a trucking entrepreneur whose eyes all but bug out of her head when the shy law student she meets at a party turns out to be heir to a fashion empire. Her calculations are so visible to us, if not to Maurizio, who never stood a chance, that her character achieves a contrary sort of guilelessness. Patrizia is so open about what she wants that it feels unfair to refer to her actions as schemes, and her desire for Maurizio can’t be separated from her desire for the money and power he represents. Gaga is wildly watchable in the role, broad but unwinking, an absolute scream, and the movie only really makes sense when it’s about her.

It’s not always about her, unfortunately. The screenplay for House of Gucci , which was written by Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna, based on a book by Sara Gay Forden, has the shapeless sprawl of something with many juicy details but no center. It begins as Patrizia’s tale, with her delightful seduction-as-bulldozing of Maurizio. Driver, who’s scientifically never been hotter than he is as the bashful idealist, makes for a hilariously unconvincing overlooked bookworm who can’t believe someone would ask him out. Rodolfo, who assesses Patrizia with an arid accuracy (Irons looks like he’s undergoing a new form of mummification that involves being wrapped in cashmere), initially cuts Maurizio out of his will for marrying Patrizia, only to slowly relent due to Aldo’s influence. A class climber causing chaos in the mansions of Milanese fashion aristocracy is the stuff of a good story. So is a reluctant child of that aristocracy overcoming his distaste for the fallacies of class to become the most ruthless spendthrift of them all. So is the balancing act of a luxury label trying to sell exclusivity while actually only making money off affordable accessories. But House of Gucci tries to be all of these movies without committing to any one perspective, never able to decide what it’s really about.

What it’s really about, of course, is rich people being awful to one another, a genre of entertainment that speaks to our era more than superheroes do. We may want to eat the rich, but we also like to watch them, and our appetite for dramas set in the world of the one percent hasn’t decreased, even as the use of guillotine GIFs rises. An unfortunate fact about the wealthy is that they get to puppet the world while also owning a lot of pretty things, qualities that have traditionally played very well onscreen. Shows like Succession and movies like House of Gucci try to square these contradictions by providing a kind of escapist schadenfreude, giving their audiences a chance to peer into the existences of the unfathomably well-off while also reassuring them that to actually be one of the superrich is to be miserable. The constant machinations and heartless power struggles are fun to watch, but also serve as a kind of moral prophylactic, a way of investing in the competitions onscreen without being in danger of investing in the characters.

Maybe that’s why Gaga’s character fades from view for a while, as though the movie loses its resolve, unable to bridge the endearing outsider and the murderess. But she represents the most interesting, if half-explored, idea that House of Gucci has to offer, because once she’s allowed into the hallowed halls of the Gucci clan, she buys into the myths of exclusivity and aristocracy more than Maurizio — who scoffs about his grandfather being a bellhop — ever did. Incensed to discover fakes being sold on the sidewalks of New York, she’s told that “quality is for the rich,” but that it’s a good thing that everyone wants to own a bit of Gucci anyway, even if it’s a knockoff. It’s the kind of cannily observed moment that makes the promise of House of Gucci so much more tantalizing than the actual movie itself. It opts for fun over quality, but there’s no reason it couldn’t have had both.

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House of Gucci review: Proof that tackiness can be art, and ostentation can be chic

Ridley scott’s soap opera is the only appropriate movie to be made about a fashion brand built primarily for wealthy maximalists, article bookmarked.

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Dir: Ridley Scott. Starring: Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons, Salma Hayek, Al Pacino. 15, 157 minutes.

House of Gucci is a titillating, ridiculous and utterly engrossing soap opera. It’s also the only appropriate movie to be made about a fashion brand built primarily for wealthy maximalists. Tacky, sure, but Gucci itself is proof that tackiness can be art, and ostentation can be chic. Just a few weeks ago, Macaulay Culkin walked the brand’s spring/summer 2022 show in clashing prints that seemed to directly homage Ace Ventura: Pet Detective . Ridley Scott ’s film, in turn, deliberately moulds itself around its star, Lady Gaga – a woman canny and self-aware enough to have once successfully stapled slabs of raw meat to her body and sold it as an haute couture moment.

She plays Patrizia Reggiani, the real-life daughter of a trucking magnate who married into the Gucci clan after meeting one of its heirs: the sober-minded Maurizio (Adam Driver). Scott’s film is quick to bury its claws into the family’s strife. Maurizio’s father Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons) dismisses Patrizia as a social climber, there are clashes with Rodolfo’s brother Aldo (Al Pacino), as well as Aldo’s son, a “triumph of mediocrity” by the name of Paolo ( Jared Leto , whose highly publicised “transformation” makes him look like an Italian Dr Phil). Somewhere along the way, Maurizio’s relationship with Patrizia disintegrates. They divorce, she’s humiliated. And, in 1995, Maurizio dies at the hand of a hitman hired by Patrizia with Gucci money.

Gaga plays the film’s early scenes with a winking, playful innocence, consciously mirroring Patrizia’s story with that of Ally, her character in 2018’s A Star is Born – another ordinary woman plucked from relative obscurity. Driver, in exacting contrast to his co-star, hasn’t looked this gawky in a while, despite all the finery. But when the two of them have sex in a grimy bungalow office, they immediately snap back into movie star mode, delivering an Oscar-worthy duologue of thrusting and grunting. What makes Gaga feel so unmatched in her onscreen bravura – and Patrizia’s feigned humility dissipates the moment she touches a fur coat – has nothing to do with the narrative put forward in her recent press tour for the film. It’s not the nine months she spent in character , or whether her painstakingly researched accent sounds accurate (it doesn’t). It’s her ability to empower even the smallest of acting choices with operatic symbolism.

There’s a defiance with which Patrizia turns up her chin when she’s threatened. When she rests her foot on the dashboard of a car, it becomes an act of provocative seduction. And when she taps her espresso cup with her spoon, you can feel the menace of it like a slap to the face. Those singular images are all shrewdly accentuated by Janty Yates’s costume design. Patrizia starts off the film demurely batting her eyelids in trenchcoats, polka dot dresses, and headscarves. But over time, her hair starts to puff up in angry, gelled spikes, so that she leaves the film looking a little like Sonic the Hedgehog – the pair of them already alike in their mutual fixation on gold rings.

House of Gucci: The true story behind Ridley Scott film starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver

Unlike Scott’s previous directorial effort, The Last Duel – which was released only a month ago – House of Gucci feels less directly concerned with achieving contemporary relevance. It’s a more straightforward story of beautiful things corrupted by ugly desires. There’s a knowing quality to the way Gucci’s flagship store in Rome is described as the “Vatican of fashion”, as if its gilded exterior could hide all sorts of sins within. What screenwriters Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna, working off Sara Gay Forden’s 2000 book on the scandal, offer is an unexpected nostalgia for a period in late-stage capitalism where familial empires still held power against the boardrooms and conglomerates. It’s the idea that, at the top of the ladder, there at least stood someone with a drop of pride and dignity left. You can imagine Scott would have much the same to say about Hollywood.

Jared Leto as Paolo, ‘clearly in heaven, schlepps around in his fat suit and a bald cap so tight you can see it pulling at his skin’

House of Gucci does, indeed, harken back to the star-driven vehicles of a pre-franchise era, which is why the cast feel so entitled to their indulgences: Irons, at leisure, swallowed up in a pashmina; Salma Hayek, as Patrizia’s closest friend, planning a murder while neck-deep in a mud bath; Leto, clearly in heaven, as he schlepps around in his fat suit and a bald cap so tight you can see it pulling at his skin. He fancies himself the real star of the show. Luxuriating in the rolled “r”’s of his appropriated Mario voice, he delivers lines like “I can finally soar, like a pigeon”, and “Never confuse s*** with chocolate”. Is what he’s doing tacky? Yes. Is it exactly what House of Gucci needed? Absolutely.

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The Outrageous True Story Behind <i>House of Gucci</i>

The Outrageous True Story Behind House of Gucci

T he explosive family drama at the center of Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci is so over-the-top that it’s reasonable to assume the film is the result of a very active imagination. In the film, out Nov. 24, the marriage of Patrizia Reggiani ( Lady Gaga ) and Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) implodes as the family business, the House of Gucci, begins to crumble under the pressure of in-fighting and cultural shifts, culminating in the shocking murder of Maurizio.

But in the case of House of Gucci , the truth is truly stranger than fiction. The film was adapted from journalist Sara Gay Forden’s 2001 nonfiction book of the same name, which chronicled the sensational real-life story of the fabulously wealthy Gucci family’s rise and fall as one of fashion’s most prominent dynasties. The tale, which includes Succession -esque rivalries between family members, multiple lawsuits, tax evasion, incarceration and, of course, murder, provided ample creative fodder for Scott and screenwriters Roberto Bentivegna and Becky Johnston.

While the story is based on real people and events, a few elements were changed for the film—intentional choices on the part of Bentivegna, who drew inspiration for the screenplay from flashy films like Sunset Boulevard, Scarface and The Godfather.

“I always wanted with this to feel like the audience was watching a movie,” he tells TIME. “I didn’t want it to feel like it was in any way a near realistic or sort of kitchen sink drama, I really wanted to feel heightened, and really bold and operatic.”

To do this, Bentivegna supplemented his use of Forden’s text with Italian articles from the time about the Gucci family’s public dramas, which he said took on a “tabloid sensationalism” especially surrounding Maurizio’s murder, which was later revealed to be a crime of passion, organized by Patrizia herself.

The element of sensationalism isn’t lost on Forden, who began writing about the Gucci family’s drama as the chief business correspondent for WWD, later drawing on her years of reporting to write her book.

“If I had made the story up like a novel, nobody would have believed it,” she tells TIME. “But it was all true. It’s a timeless story. There are lessons in it, like blood should be thicker than water. And unfortunately, in this case, it wasn’t.”

Here’s what to know about the true story behind House of Gucci.

What to know about the Gucci family

The Gucci fashion house began as a luxury luggage brand founded in 1921 by Guccio Gucci. Guccio was inspired to create his business after a stint working as a bellhop at The Savoy Hotel in London and a gig working for an upscale train travel company. Guccio opened his first shop in Florence in 1921, offering fine leather luggage and accessories, as well as leather goods for horsemen. Guccio’s small shop soon blossomed into a booming family business with many shops in different cities and countries, especially after four of his sons (Vasco, Aldo, Rodolfo and Ugo, who was Guccio’s adopted stepson from his wife’s previous relationship) began working with him. Following Guccio’s death in 1953, shares of the business were left to his three biological sons, Vasco, Rodolfo and Aldo. Looming sibling rivalries between the brothers turned into full-on feuds that continued into the next generation, which helped lead to the downfall of the Gucci family in the fashion industry.

Conflict came to a head after Rodolfo Gucci died in 1983, leaving his son Maurizio a majority stake in the company, which was floundering under the leadership of Aldo. Maurizio, who felt Aldo’s approach of championing the mass production of Gucci products cheapened Gucci’s identity as a luxury brand, spent the majority of the 1980s trying to push him out of the business through legal battles and take over the company. The familial strife during this time was ugly and in the public eye: Aldo served a year in prison for tax evasion and Maurizio fled to Switzerland after being accused of forging his father’s signature to avoid paying inheritance taxes (while he was originally found guilty, he was later acquitted). By 1989, Maurizio had succeeded in taking control of the company and was strongly determined to revamp its image. However, by 1993, Maurizio’s excessive spending and the company’s outstanding debts forced him to sell his 50% percent stake to the business’ investors, ending the Gucci family’s ownership and control of the brand.

Forden says that while the end of the Gucci family dynasty in fashion may be one of the more dramatic incidents in the industry’s history, it was part of a larger trend for Italian fashion during the time, which also affected family companies like Prada, Versace and Armani, which were struggling with transitioning their respective small family boutique businesses into internationally recognized mega brands.

“Gucci tells the story of many family companies that were struggling to kind of get to the next level and wrestling with these questions of succession,” she says. “Obviously, they were challenges in the transformation to the next level and Gucci exemplified that in the most extreme and dramatic way. But I was really touched and compelled by Maurizio Gucci himself, who was on this mission to relaunch his family company to restore it to the top tier of the luxury market.”

Forden also noted that while Maurizio was unable to retain control or ownership of Gucci, he foretold the future of many of these fashion brands, becoming the first to bring in a financial shareholder in order to elevate the brand to the next level.

What to know about Patrizia Reggiani

While Patrizia Reggiani was not born a Gucci, her name looms large in the history of the family. Born Patrizia Martinelli, the future “Lady Gucci” as she would be dubbed during her heyday, grew up poor and not knowing her biological father. When she was 12, her mother married Ferdinando Reggiani, a wealthy entrepreneur, who adopted Patrizia as his own. When she came of age, Patrizia was a socialite in Milan, but despite her stepfather’s wealth, she was not necessarily part of Milan’s high society. According to Forden, Patrizia’s mother was hopeful that her daughter could gain the family entry into these social circles.

Patrizia found an opportunity to join the elite circles of Milan after she met Maurizio at a party in 1970, where he was allegedly impressed with her resemblance to Elizabeth Taylor.

“I met Maurizio at a party and he fell madly in love with me,” Reggiani told The Guardian in a 2016 interview. “I was exciting and different.”

What to know about Patrizia and Maurizio’s marriage and divorce

Maurizio and Patrizia got married in 1972, after two years of courtship, but the union caused a rift in the family. Maurizio’s father, Rodolfo, did not approve of Reggiani’s social background and believed she was a social climber and opted not to attend the couple’s wedding. Rodolfo later reconciled with both his son and daughter-in-law after the birth of their first daughter, Alessandra, in 1976 (the couple had a second daughter, Allegra, in 1981) and even gifted them a luxury penthouse in New York City’s Olympic Tower, where they lived while Maurizio worked for the family business with Aldo.

During the early years of their marriage, Maurizio and Patrizia were active in the New York social scene, often socializing with the likes of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and known for their ostentatious, extravagant lifestyle—the pair were notorious for being chauffeured around Manhattan in a car with a personalized vanity plate with their amalgamated couple’s name, “Mauizia,” and had a yacht and vacation homes Saint Moritz, Acapulco and Connecticut.

Patrizia had an outsize influence on Maurizio in all things, including his dealings with Gucci. According to Bentivegna, Maurizio may have craved Patrizia’s guidance because he grew up as an only child whose mother died when he was very young; by all accounts, Patrizia was well aware that Maurizio’s personality was more timid than hers.

“[Patrizia] famously said that he was like a chair that takes the shape of whoever sits on it,” he says. “So, she as an incredibly sharp and cynical manipulator knew that she had putty in her hands, and she could really mold and play with, but I think it came out of a place of love.”

The couple’s marital problems began in 1983, after Maurizio received a majority stake in the company following the death of his father and attempted to take over the company by launching a legal war to oust his uncles. In an interview with The Guardian , Patrizia claimed that during this time, “Maurizio got crazy. Until then I was his chief adviser about all Gucci matters. But he wanted to be the best, and he stopped listening to me.”

Amid the strife with the family business, Maurizio suddenly severed his relationship with Patrizia. In 1985, after the family had relocated to Milan, Maurizio went on a business trip to Florence, then sent a friend to tell Patrizia that he would not be returning and that their marriage was over. Maurizio began living with Paola Franchi, a childhood friend, in 1991, inciting Patrizia’s jealousy. In 1994, the couple officially divorced, with Patrizia receiving a €2.5 million divorce settlement and a yearly alimony payment of €650,000, which she memorably compared to “a mere bowl of lentils.” Though she lost her legal right to use the surname Gucci in the divorce, Patrizia continued to do so anyway; in an interview with La Republica , she glibly noted: “I still feel like a Gucci—in fact, the most Gucci of them all.”

What actually happened to Maurizio Gucci?

On the morning of March 27, 1995, Maurizio was shot multiple times outside of his office in Milan. He died on the steps of the building in the arms of Giuseppe Onorato, the doorman and only witness to the shooting, who himself was shot. Patrizia was not arrested until 1997, two years after his murder, after police detectives received an anonymous tip. It was later discovered that on the day of Maurizio’s murder, Patrizia wrote one word in her diary, “paradeisos,” Greek for paradise.

What happened at Patrizia’s trial and sentencing?

Patrizia’s trial was a flashy and highly publicized affair, thanks to the Gucci family’s high profile in Italy. She was dubbed the “Black Widow,” a moniker that held more weight once her trial was underway. During the trial, where Patrizia vehemently claimed that she was innocent, the prosecution played tapes of menacing and threatening voicemails that Patrizia had sent Maurizio and Paola, while the defense contended that Patrizia was mentally unstable because of a 1992 operation to remove a brain tumor, which they alleged altered her personality. However, three of the people involved in the scheme (Pina Auriemma, Patrizia’s friend and personal astrologer; Orazio Cicala, the getaway driver; and Ivano Savioni, the man who hired the hitman and driver) confessed to not only their involvement in the murder, but Patrizia’s role in organizing it. Both Patrizia and the hitman who shot Maurizio, Benedetto Ceraulo, denied their charges.

In November 1998, Patrizia was convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to 29 years in prison, although she only ended up serving 18. Patrizia could have had a shorter tenure in Milan’s San Vittore prison, where she notably was allowed to have a pet ferret , and was eligible for parole in 2011, but she refused, opting to stay in jail, as opposed to joining a work-release program.

“I’ve never worked in my life,” she was reported stating in court . “I won’t start now.”

Patrizia was released in 2016 for good behavior and now works as a consultant for a jewelry company in Milan, where she has been spotted shopping with a parrot on her shoulder. She has since acknowledged her role in the murder of Maurizio, telling an Italian reality TV show when queried why she didn’t shoot her ex-husband herself: “My eyesight is not so good. I didn’t want to miss.”

As for Patrizia’s thoughts on the big screen adaptation of her life, she’s miffed that she was not consulted by Lady Gaga for the film.

“I am rather annoyed at the fact that Lady Gaga is playing me in the new Ridley Scott film without having had the consideration and sensibility to come and meet me,” she told ANSA , an Italian wire service. However, Bentivegna is not convinced that Patrizia isn’t somewhat impressed that the film was made.

“I think Patrizia is going to love the movie and I think she’s thrilled that it’s being made,” he says. “I think she’s incredibly flattered that Lady Gaga is playing her, because she is, to put it mildly, self-absorbed.”

What the Gucci family has to say about House of Gucci film adaptation

Following the release of the film, the family of Aldo Gucci released a statement in ANSA , slamming the movie for showing “one narrative that is far from accurate.” In the statement, the Gucci family called out the film’s production for not consulting them before portraying Aldo and the rest of the family on-screen; they also took issue with the film’s depiction of Patrizia Reggiani as a sort of feminist foil to the male leadership of the company. Variety reported via an anonymous source that despite the severe statement, the Gucci family is not seeking legal action against Scott’s production company or Warner Bros.

Read the full statement, translated from Italian, below.

The Gucci family takes note of the release of the film “House of Gucci” with some bewilderment because, although the work claims to want to tell the “true story” of the family, the fears aroused by the trailers and interviews released so far, are confirmed: the film carries one narrative that is far from accurate.

The production of the film did not bother to consult the heirs before describing Aldo Gucci – president of the company for 30 years – and the members of the Gucci family as thugs, ignorant and insensitive to the world around them, attributing notes to the protagonists, events, tones and attitudes that never belonged to them. This is extremely painful from a human point of view and an insult to the legacy on which the brand is built today.

Even more censurable is the reconstruction that becomes mystifying on the edge of the paradox when it comes to suggesting indulgent tones towards a woman who, definitively convicted of having been the instigator of the murder of Maurizio Gucci, is not painted only in the film, but also in the statements of the cast members, as a victim that was trying to survive in a masculine and macho corporate culture.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. Moreover, in the 70 years of history in which it was a family business, Gucci was an inclusive company. Indeed, precisely in the 1980s – the historical context in which the film is set – women were in different top positions: whether they were members of the family or extraneous to it, they included th e president of Gucci America, the Head of Global PR & Communication, and a member of the board of directors of Gucci America.

Gucci is a family that lives honoring the work of its ancestors, whose memory does not deserve to be bothered to stage a film that is not true and that d oes not do justice to its protagonists.

The members of the Gucci family reserves every right to protect the name, image and the dignity of their loved ones.

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Write to Cady Lang at [email protected]

United Artists Releasing

Summary House of Gucci is inspired by the shocking true story of the family behind the Italian fashion empire. When Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga), an outsider from humble beginnings, marries into the Gucci family, her unbridled ambition begins to unravel the family legacy and triggers a reckless spiral of betrayal, decadence, revenge, and ultima ... Read More

Directed By : Ridley Scott

Written By : Becky Johnston, Roberto Bentivegna, Sara Gay Forden

House of Gucci

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“House of Gucci,” Reviewed: Lady Gaga Steals a Style-Challenged Yarn of the Fashion World

By Richard Brody

Adam Driver and Lady Gaga sit on a couch in formal attire while Al Pacino stands to their right and speaks to them with...

Start with the accents. Ridley Scott’s new movie, “House of Gucci,” is about one of Italy’s most notable and notorious fashion families, but it is an English-language movie starring an extraordinary cast of American and British actors— Adam Driver , Lady Gaga, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Jared Leto, and Jack Huston—who speak in heavily Italian-accented English. This decision renders the movie ridiculous from the start, like a Monty Python parody of the fashion world. It serves no dramatic purpose whatsoever, but it does serve a significant commercial and industrial one: it turns the acting into stunt acting, exposing the exceptional exertion required of the performers in navigating the dialogue’s game of phonic hopscotch. It’s a verbal variety of Oscar bait, an elocutionary version of wrestling the bear , the effortful stunt business that won Leonardo DiCaprio an Oscar for “The Revenant.” The trickery may attract awards, but it does the actors of “House of Gucci” no favors.

The added verbal obstacles are all the more regrettable because the film’s script, written by Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna, is packed with sharp repartee that reverberates fascinatingly far beyond the confines of the characters’ specific troubles. Yet Scott focusses with narrow-minded obstinacy on the troubles at hand, and the movie that results feels like a true-crime TV miniseries sliced and diced to feature length. Jack Webb couldn’t have done a more rigorous job of filtering for “ just the facts ” than Scott has done, at the expense of any societal and historical resonance that the drama packs and any psychological depth that the characters possess.

The story is centered on the aloof scion of the Gucci clan, Maurizio (Driver), who, in 1978, is a cheerful, serious, carefree law student in Milan, studious, reserved, elegant, relaxed, zipping around town on a bicycle, a clip around the ankles of his well-tailored trousers. Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) is the office manager at her father’s Milan trucking company, where she shows up in tight dresses and high heels and endures the catcalls of the truckers hanging around the yard. Ill at ease at a friend’s disco party, Maurizio lingers alone behind an isolated bar; he and Patrizia meet cute when she asks him for a drink and he has to admit that he’s not the bartender. Patrizia asks him to dance, he demurs, she undoes his tie and loosens him up. Then, knowing she’d never see him again otherwise, she takes a seat at a café near his school library, pretends to be a law student, then gives him her phone number—by writing it in lipstick on the windshield of his scooter. It’s the air-kiss of death.

I haven’t yet seen Joel Coen’s forthcoming “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” but I will be surprised if Frances McDormand, for all the force of her artistry, feeds Lady Macbeth’s ambition with the same carnal energy that Lady Gaga brings to the remarkably similar role of Patrizia. As with Shakespeare’s play, everyone knows how the drama of Patrizia and Maurizio comes out: it’s as well known that she paid hit men to kill him as it is that Birnam Wood ultimately came to Dunsinane.

Patrizia shakes up Maurizio’s life in an irresistible whirlwind of sex and fun. After he introduces his new girlfriend to his father, Rodolfo (Irons), the older man makes the cardinal mistake of the disapproving parent: he not only expresses his disapproval (voicing his suspicion that Patrizia is a gold-digger and her father a mafioso) but threatens to cut Maurizio off, and in so doing forces the young man’s hand. Maurizio proposes to Patrizia, moves in with her parents, and takes a job at the family trucking firm, where he wears a uniform and makes friends with other working men. After the wedding—with the Gucci side of the church empty—Maurizio imparts to Patrizia his skepticism about his own family business. For her, though, it’s the prize, and it quickly proves within reach. Rodolfo’s brother, Aldo (Pacino), who owns the other fifty per cent of the business, considers his own son, Paolo (Leto)—an aspiring designer—to be a tasteless idiot, and he wants to lure Maurizio into the business. When he does so (with Patrizia as his persuasive proxy), she grabs hold of it with both hands: as a member of the family with a place at the table in meetings, and as the wife of a still-diffident potentate whom she has wrapped around her finger. But catastrophe follows quickly. Maurizio’s role in the company comes at a high emotional and moral price, and, when he tires of paying that price, he becomes disillusioned with Patrizia and seeks a divorce, inspiring her to exact the ultimate revenge.

Throughout “House of Gucci,” certain themes of underlying power and overarching breadth threaten to break through to the action and bring some substance to the movie—namely, the uneasy connection of family businesses and of capitalism, the inefficiency that inheres in inherited power, the inevitable and painful transition from dynasties to partnerships and publicly traded companies. These subjects are at least glancingly touched on in several sharply written scenes of fascinating boardroom maneuvers, but they remain isolated: Scott treats the Gucci saga as a mere yarn (albeit a ripping one), the cinematic equivalent of a series of jovially recounted barstool anecdotes that void the story’s social implications and haunting psychology. Patrizia is a Lady Macbeth without depth—without a sense of the deep twistedness that her ruthless behavior suggests, without any hint of the violence in her character. She has nerve and flashes of wit, but her relationship with Maurizio is a blank, the substance of their life together kept rigorously offscreen. It’s a key plot point that Patrizia calls in to a TV clairvoyant, Pina Auriemma (Salma Hayek), who becomes her confidant and co-conspirator. The women’s connection suggests the class differences between Patrizia and Maurizio, but those differences go completely unexplored, asserted only when they conveniently push the action along.

The movie’s essential hollowness is all the more dismaying for its absurdly glorious moments of pop-iconic grandeur—most of them sharpened by Gaga’s screen-commanding gestures. Scott revels in such melodramatic touches as Patrizia holding up her hand with a spring-loaded intensity to flaunt her wedding ring, and—in a sublime bit of chutzpah—striding with the air of a conqueror into the family home after the murder is carried out. “House of Gucci” is Gaga’s movie, and she tears into it with an exuberant yet precise ferocity. She is the main reason why the movie at times transcends the limits of its scripted action. Her performance is an unusual one, all forceful gesticulations and high-relief inflections; she’s not expressively complex in repose except through the flaming power of her furiously fixed gaze, which is the movie’s dominant visual trope. Given her lack of extensive theatre training, though, the accent shtick leaves her at an inherent disadvantage beside her co-stars. She sounds somewhat like Natasha from “Rocky and Bullwinkle.” I can’t get out of my head Patrizia’s response to Rodolfo when he asks about her interests: I’m a “pipple pleaser,” she says.

Driver is the onscreen M.V.P. of the past decade in movies, and he copes gamely with the constraint; it’s the writing in “House of Gucci” that lets him down. There’s not enough doubt or equivocation in Maurizio’s transformation to support the quizzical intellectual distraction that Driver brings to the character. He gets one good gesture in—a gleeful solitary leap over a sofa in his splashy new Manhattan office, a moment of “it’s good to be the king” that, rather than inaugurating his new reign of inner conflicts, waves them away. (Scott offers one fine touch for Maurizio, though it’s not a moment of performance but of design—a glimpse of his family-brand loafers that he wears while riding his scooter and trying to get past Swiss border controls.) There are other such moments, too, mainly involving Pacino, the one actor in the bunch who seems hardly inhibited by the compulsory accent stunt. Pacino brings to Aldo the grandeur that comes with fortune and power, and also the sardonic humor that’s the actor’s natural trait. He adds shiny flourishes even to such casual sequences as a telephone call inviting Rodolfo to his birthday party. Scott strains after such touches of flashiness (call them melodramatic bling), as if dousing the entire production in an element of sensation will compensate for merely functional storytelling serving in lieu of characters or ideas.

Though “House of Gucci” is centered on the world of fashion, it above all displays an appalling lack of style. Neither the craft of making clothing and leather goods nor the delight in handling them nor the transfixing delight in merely looking at them are allowed to knock the storytelling off its relentless, single-minded, crowd-pleasing pace. Plenty of fashion objects are seen in the course of the movie; none is lingered over, and the lack of contemplation is apparent visually no less than dramatically. With its indifference to the physical stuff of its subject, the thematic implications of its story, and the psychological twists of its characters, “House of Gucci,” in its briskly efficient professionalism, is the very exemplar of one-size-fits-all dramaturgy, of off-the-rack cinematic style, of directorial hack work.

An earlier version of this article misidentified the film’s screenwriters.

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House of Gucci review: Ridley Scott's starry melodrama is both too much and not enough

It's Goooochi, darling.

Coco Chanel once famously said to look in the mirror before leaving the house and take one thing off. But Gucci is not Chanel, and Ridley Scott is not a man built for minimalism: His House does pretty much everything to the max, a chaotic bellissimo romp of a movie so stuffed with oversized characters and telenovela twists that it feels less like a biopic than a duty-free Dynasty .

At 157 minutes, it could also nearly be a miniseries, which actually might have served the amount of outrageous real-life narrative screenwriters Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna are attempting to cram in. The center and the springboard, though, is the romance between Maurizio Gucci ( Adam Driver ) and Patrizia Reggiani ( Lady Gaga ). She's a tiny firecracker, a pocket Venus in a wiggle skirt with dreams that reach a lot higher than the reception desk of her father's trucking company. He's tall and rangy, an absent-minded scion who would rather study law than take his own expected place in the family business.

When they meet at a Milan nightclub in 1978, Maurizio thinks she looks like Liz Taylor; she thinks he looks like a millionaire. He's too shy and socially awkward to make a real move but she's no dummy: With some legwork and a little light stalking, she can make fate align for a first date. It doesn't take long until he's smitten with her sense of freedom and the lipstick kisses she leaves on his Vespa, even when his disapproving father ( Jeremy Irons , sepulchral in a series of silk dressing gowns) sniffily cuts him off.

For a minute the pair get to play at keeping house like ordinary married people, but there's a power vacuum at Gucci that its current head, Maurizio's beloved uncle Aldo (an avuncular Al Pacino ), can't fill alone — and certainly not with his own son, the rotund, faintly ridiculous Paolo. (That's Jared Leto under all those bald caps and prosthetics, though hiring Jeffrey Tambor seems like it might have been an easier shortcut.) Soon enough Maurizio is back in the mix, with Patrizia as his loyal consigliere and Lady Macbeth. But when her ambitions for the company outstrip her husband's patience with "outsiders" — and his attentions stray to an old friend ( Stillwater 's Camille Cottin) more suited to his class — a more permanent plan B begins to fall into place.

Gucci is Scott's second movie this year after the underappreciated Last Duel , and at 83, his sense of melodrama and florid showmanship is largely undiminished; the story on screen, with its vast palazzos, headline scandals, and Swiss bank accounts, feels like one of those old Vanity Fair articles about rich-people depravity come to life. In that sense, it has more in common with 2017's All the Money in the World than any of his Gladiators or American Gangsters . Which is not to say that Gaga doesn't come in full battle dress: Beneath the Ferrari-red snowsuits and wild wiggery, she vibrates with an intensity that often supersedes the sillier bits, every hand clap and espresso-cup tap another brick in a highly GIF-able whole.

It's clear she's playing for her life, though it's less obvious whether she's in the same movie as her costars: Leto's clownish Paolo seems to be in some kind of tragic comedy; the storyline for Salma Hayek , as the late-night TV psychic Patrizia increasingly leans on, is pure farce. And Driver, maybe for the first time, is the coolest cucumber in the room, a distracted aristocrat who retreats behind his name and his nice things whenever things get too ugly or difficult. (That they're all speaking in a lumpy risotto of accents that range from La Dolce Vita to lost Mario brother certainly doesn't help, though it's also hard at this point to imagine the film without them.)

Gucci might have been a better movie if it had fully committed to the high camp its Blondie-soundtracked trailer promised. It's more serious than that, at least intermittently; a strange melange of too much and not enough. The script also skimps, weirdly, on the actual murder, which is treated mostly as a framing device and felonious afterthought until the final moments. But even a House divided is still more fun than it probably should be: a big messy chef's kiss to money and fashion and above all, movie stars — criming and scheming like they have nothing left to lose, until it's true. Grade: B

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House of gucci, common sense media reviewers.

Gaga + vintage glam = fab fun; smoking, swearing, sex.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Themes of love and family are countered by repeate

While each character has admirable moments, they a

Assassination with a shooting death. A man handles

Married couple has passionate sex. A man's backsid

Strong language includes "bastards," "bitch," "but

Gucci name/label is the heart of this story. Throu

Smoking and drinking throughout.

Positive Messages

Themes of love and family are countered by repeated demonstrations of greed, power, betrayal.

Positive Role Models

While each character has admirable moments, they all make decisions or take actions that prevent them from being good role models.

Violence & Scariness

Assassination with a shooting death. A man handles his wife aggressively. Cruel insults.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Married couple has passionate sex. A man's backside is completely exposed. Patrizia dresses in low-cut blouses and tight skirts. Bubble and mud baths barely cover breasts. Women seen in only bras and underwear, including a glimpse of a model in a see-through bra.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong language includes "bastards," "bitch," "butthole," "s--t," and several uses of "f--k."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Gucci name/label is the heart of this story. Through the eyes of a working-class character, viewers see her delight in coming into wealth and having expensive clothes, estates, cars, trips. The story is about the trap of greed, but the takeaway is still "more is more."

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that director Ridley Scott 's House of Gucci is a glamorous examination of greed. A real-life murder looms over the story: In 1998, Patrizia Reggiani ( Lady Gaga ) was convicted of planning the assassination of her ex-husband, Maurizio Gucci ( Adam Driver ), the former head of the Gucci fashion house. The film plays out like a real-world Dynasty ; it's full of sex, betrayal, wealth, and all the excess of the 1980s. And while the film doesn't condone her actions, Patrizia is the main character, and her portrayal isn't unsympathetic. The clothes, the cars, the estates, the Italian locations, the makeup, the music -- everything here is dripping in style, and young viewers will eat it up. But that glamour extends to the way smoking is depicted: With every puff of a cigarette, you can practically hear the crackle of the burning tip and a silky whoosh with the exhale. There's also drinking throughout and strong, cruel language ("bitch," "f--k," etc.). Married characters have passionate sex, and there's partial nudity, including a man's bare bottom. Teens may well adore the haute couture aesthetic, the epic put-downs, and Gaga's hypnotic performance, but with the movie's two-and-a-half-hour running time, they may get antsy before its stunning conclusion. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Parents say (7)
Kids say (15)

Based on 7 parent reviews

I sexual scene that can be avoided, overall amazing movie with incredible acting and connection to actors

Flashy fashion fun but not for kids, what's the story.

In HOUSE OF GUCCI, Maurizio Gucci ( Adam Driver ) marries Patrizia Reggiani ( Lady Gaga ) over the protests of his father, Rodolpho ( Jeremy Irons ). As the couple builds a life together, Patrizia inserts herself into the family's fashion business, pushing out the Guccis by any means possible. The movie is adapted from Sara Gay Forden's 2001 nonfiction book The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed.

Is It Any Good?

With this juicy, delicious drama, director Ridley Scott proves it's always in fashion to expose the ugliness in beautiful things. The Gucci story is a take on the Cinderella fairy tale: The handsome heir in a family of wealth, power, and influence defies his father to marry a loving but low-status girl. The story is told through the perspective of that girl, Patrizia, which helps viewers appreciate what it would be like to wake up one morning and have it all: a loving family, an exciting social calendar, a life ensconced in jaw-dropping luxury. It's gleefully fun, but there's no happily ever after. Gaga demonstrates again that's she's a mesmerizing acting phenom. As Patrizia, she's adorable, sexy, smart, and almost uncomfortably relatable. Driver balances her larger-than-life presence with an understated performance, allowing viewers to understand why reserved and socially awkward Maurizio is drawn to her. Patrizia is big, bold, and manipulative; Maurizio is quiet and intellectual and compartmentalizes his emotions. Scott deftly exposes that these two personality types were a toxic combination: It was inevitable that their romantic sparks would grow into a five-alarm fire, burning everything to the ground.

Nearly all of the actors in House of Gucci are American, putting on Italian accents -- Gaga and Driver pretty believably, but virtually unrecognizable co-star Jared Leto is more ridiculous. As Paolo Gucci, he's a caricature so off the wall that it sucks you out of the film. But he's also the comic relief and is likely to keep teen viewers engaged. And the dialogue crackles with quotable lines, particularly insults. All of that said, the revelry, excess, and sizzling slams only go so far; listening to men in suits talk shop is enough to make anyone's mind wander, and at two hours and 38 minutes, we feel the drag. And then it's like Scott picks up on our boredom and applies the gas to get to the shocking conclusion, rushing crucial character development. House of Gucci is enthralling when we're immersed in a moving, breathing issue of Vogue , but we needed it to end like Psychology Today ; instead, we're tossed the dog-eared pages of a National Enquirer .

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the appeal of stories about the rich and famous. What makes them interesting? Why are we intrigued by the downfall of people like this?

Who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist in House of Gucci ? Is Patrizia's experience relatable? Why do you think the filmmakers chose to show that her business instincts were right, considering that her actions were wrong?

How are drinking and smoking depicted here? Are they glamorized ? Are there realistic consequences? Why does that matter?

Movie Details

In theaters : November 24, 2021
On DVD or streaming : February 22, 2022
Cast : Lady Gaga , Adam Driver , Salma Hayek , Al Pacino , Jared Leto
Director : Ridley Scott
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Bisexual actors, Latino actors, Middle Eastern/North African actors
Studio : MGM
Genre : Drama
Topics : Brothers and Sisters , History
Run time : 157 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : language, some sexual content, and brief nudity and violence
Last updated : May 2, 2024

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House of Gucci Review

Even gaga can’t save the guccis from themselves..

House of Gucci debuts in theaters on Nov. 24, 2021.

It’s been hard to know what to expect from House of Gucci. With its trailers’ ‘80s-era synth and bass-pumping needle drops and the eyebrow-raising array of very gabagool Italian accents from its cast, this movie could have been anything from black comedy camp to an arch Godfather -like drama. In director Ridley Scott’s hands, it’s more the latter than the former. That’s certainly respectful of the bleak true story at its heart, but the director lets the whole affair get so self-serious and Lifetime-movie-overwrought by its meandering end that I was left wishing for the better film that’s buried in there somewhere.

The script by Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna uses Sara Gay Forden’s book, The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed, to create the spine of this tale of the murder of the former head of the Gucci fashion house, Maurizio Gucci, (Adam Driver) by his ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga).

With that casting of Gaga as Reggiani, there shouldn’t even be a question that the movie’s point of view belongs to her, yet it surprisingly does not. While it opens and closes with Maurizio on the day of his murder, the narrative is so scattershot in trying to service its large celebrity cast that there’s no clairty about exactly whose version of the events this is supposed to be.

The most successful part of this is the first 45 minutes, during which Scott presents the snappy, romantic, and sexy coming together of Patrizia and Maurizio in 1970. It’s an unexpectedly sweet way to open the film and gives us a sympathetic appreciation for both Patrizia and Maurizio when they meet-cute at a mutual friend’s party. Driver offers us a delightfully and unexpectedly socially awkward Maurizio, which is the perfect catnip to Gaga’s confident yet modest Patrizia. Their polar opposite character vibes make for a very charming, and for a moment, smouldering hot courtship that grounds the characters and our feelings about them before they take on his Gucci relatives.

What's your favorite Ridley Scott movie?

And the duo are forced to enter the maelstrom of his world-famous family when his father, Rodolfo Gucci (Jeremy Irons), rejects Patrizia as a gold digger and cuts off his son for eventually wanting to marry her. Through beautifully shot family dinners and lush courtyard conversations in and around Gucci's huge estates, Scott does a fine job setting up the implied dynamics of the haves and have-nots in the story, and how Maurizio’s life has always been orchestrated behind the scenes by the men in his family. Because of that, it really resonates why Maurizio is extremely content and happy to work for his in-law’s, and leave the burden of his name behind him.

However, Patrizia is not settled with that decision so she prods him to accept his Uncle Aldo’s (Al Pacino) gesture to come back to the family. With only two male heirs left to potentially take over the family business, Aldo knows his idiot son, Paolo (Jared Leto), is a non-starter and that Maurizio is their only option to keep the legacy strong. He’s going to be a pawn played by his wife and his blood relatives for control, and this is where the movie starts to go off the rails.

Maybe because Scott does such a good job in the first act getting the audience behind Patrizia and Maurizio, it doesn’t make a lot of sense when Patrizia asserts herself as an opportunistic shark, embracing a social and financial ambition that is almost entirely lacking in her husband. Gaga is certainly charming as Patrizia even when she’s working his cousin and uncle as pawns to be played to their advantage. The script doesn’t make it clear why she chooses this path over her husband, so we’re left to guess which makes her more and more distant as a connectable character. All the sympathy then transfers to Maurizio as he’s forced to transform into the slick. calculating man he never wanted to be, all the while aware of the moral corruption that comes with the money and power in his family. He’s out of his depth in this world, unprepared to truly navigate it, yet helpless in deterring Patrizia’s orchestrations.

As the years tick by and the runtime blooms, Scott sort of Cliffsnotes their marriage, sacrificing the intimacy of their relationship for the bigger picture familial drama. Because of that, Patrizia and Maurizio devolve into sketches of their characters. As the relationship disintegrates, Patrizia becomes an emoting machine, erupting with jealousy or anger as Maurizio slips through her fingers, which is deserving considering her behavior. As a caricature of the spurned Italian woman, she’s increasingly dependent on her personal psychic, Giuseppina Auriemma (an underutilized Salma Hayek) and is increasingly sidelined from the action as Maurizio evolves into the man his ex-wife wanted him to be, pulling off chilling business moves that eventually put Aldo in jail for tax fraud.

New Fall Movies 2021: 40 Films to Look Forward To

Performance wise, Driver and Pacino have the best handle on their characters. They both craft and execute the arcs of the men they’re playing, ascending and descending respectively, in their familial and business roles in ways that resonate. Pacino is surprisingly measured as he authentically plays the domineering Italian aging alpha male. And Driver subtly sheds Maurizio’s warmth and reticence as he ages into his legacy.

Unfortunately, Gaga’s Patrizia gets more shrill and arch. She makes the most of some campy, quotable scenes, but it never feels as organic of a performance as it did in the start. And boy, oh boy, what to say about Jared Leto? He makes the weirdest choices possible playing sad sack cousin Paolo. Buried in prosthetics, makeup and wigs to bring Paolo to life, Leto certainly makes the pitiable, talentless cousin a scene stealer – but not in a good way. He does liven up the more boring parts of the second and third acts, but a little of his Italian hand-throwing and bizarro accent goes a long way. Scott overindulges Leto over and over again, never reining him in, which adds to the painfully excessive two-and-a-half-hour run time.

All that means that the last hour of House of Gucci is a pretty joyless affair, with Scott focusing on strange things like non sequitur photo shoots for Maurizio or Paolo’s pigeons. And Patrizia is reduced to small appearances, which means her escalating to a place of murder is never contextualized outside of cartoonish fits of anger. It makes for a cold and unfeeling climax as the movie is no longer interested in presenting her as a fully realized person. And then the movie ends abruptly and without any drama, which is beyond underwhelming.

If Scott had taken an editorial cleaver to at least 45 minutes and orchestrated a thriller’s pace to Maurizio’s murder and Patrizia’s mania for retribution, House of Gucci might have been a far better film. Instead, Scott gets in the weeds charting the Guccis’ struggle to keep their company, which doesn’t even feel personal anymore. In fact, Patrizia and Maurizio might as well be footnotes in their own story as the text explaining how it all turned out ends up hitting harder than their last scenes on camera.

House of Gucci starts with such promise as Adam Driver, Lady Gaga, and Al Pacino give performances that bring out the emotional complexity of the historically dysfunctional Gucci family. But then Ridley Scott becomes infatuated with tracking the fall of the corporation and its familial machinations instead of zeroing in on the more compelling personal implosion of Patrizia and Maurizio. Too much of the narrative is given over to side characters and scenes that are overindulgent, which lessens the potency of the tragic story and our investment in where they all end up.

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Critics are saying bravo to singer-actor Lady Gaga for her performance in Ridley Scott’s new “House of Gucci.”

The flashy family drama about the scandalous meltdown of its titular fashion empire stars the “Chromatica” artist as Patrizia Reggiani , the real-life Italian socialite who was convicted in 1997 of plotting the murder of her ex-husband. Her former lover, business mogul Maurizio Gucci, is played in the film by Adam Driver.

Reviews for “House of Gucci,” which opened in theaters Wednesday, have generally been lukewarm, amounting to a mediocre 63% on Rotten Tomatoes, the reviews aggregator site. But even some of the most critical ones agree: Gaga is “transfixing,” “coldly electrifying” and “wildly watchable” as the film’s vengeful femme fatale.

Lady Gaga stars as Patrizia Reggiani in Ridley Scott's HOUSE OF GUCCI A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film Photo credit: Fabio Lovino © 2021 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Review: Lady Gaga brings down the ‘House of Gucci’ in Ridley Scott’s lavish couture-clash drama

Adam Driver, Jared Leto, Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons also star in the director’s second epic drama of the year, following “The Last Duel.”

Nov. 22, 2021

“As in her previous unhappily ever after Cinderella story, ‘A Star Is Born, ’ Lady Gaga temporarily dons a working-class shell, downplaying her natural magnetism in order to maximize it,” writes Times film critic Justin Chang .

“Before long, Patrizia stands revealed for what she is: an avatar of ambition and, like Gaga herself, a couturier’s delight, born to wear the silver-sequined evening gowns and furry après-ski ensembles dreamed up for her by costume designer Janty Yates.”

Also among the star-studded cast of the Oscar-bait period piece are Al Pacino, Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons and Salma Hayek, but Chang asserts that “no one in ‘House of Gucci’ ... can ultimately contend with the force of nature that is Lady Gaga.”

“In a movie that delights in its own counterfeit charms, she is very much the real deal,” he writes.

A woman with a blond up-do wearing a voluminous dress

Lady Gaga never wanted to meet her ‘House of Gucci’ character, thank you very much

‘Nobody was going to tell me who Patrizia Gucci was. Not even Patrizia Gucci,’ Lady Gaga said of her decision not to meet the formerly imprisoned heiress.

Nov. 3, 2021

Here’s what others had to say about the Oscar and Grammy winner’s “operatic,” “full-tilt” performance as Patrizia Reggiani .

New York Times

“About those Guccis. You’ve heard of ham? Well, this is a family-size salumi platter,” writes A.O. Scott . “Adam Driver is relatively restrained as Maurizio, who as a law student meets Patrizia Reggiani at a party, where she charmingly mistakes him for a bartender. She comes from a less exalted family — her father owns a small trucking company — and she is played by Lady Gaga with the verve of an Anna Magnani avatar in a Super Mario video game.”

Entertainment Weekly

“Beneath the Ferrari-red snowsuits and wild wiggery, [Gaga] vibrates with an intensity that often supersedes the sillier bits, every hand clap and espresso-cup tap another brick in a highly GIF-able whole,” writes Leah Greenblatt . “It’s clear she’s playing for her life, though it’s less obvious whether she’s in the same movie as her costars.”

A woman in sunglasses and a fur-trimmed hat

“Confirming that she’s one of the most hypnotically self-possessed actors on the planet, Lady Gaga plays the already ridiculous Patrizia Reggiani as a caricature of a caricature,” writes David Ehrlich .

“The result is a singular double-negative of a performance that gradually humanizes a social-climbing succubus as she tumbles back down towards hell; the film around her might stiffen down its morbid final stretch, but Gaga seems to gain even more control over herself as Patrizia spirals towards murder.”

“Gaga’s face is avid and open, with a fervor that volts through her eyes; she has a born actress’s gift for letting you read her emotions while holding a nugget of mystery in check,” writes Owen Gleiberman .

“As Gaga plays Patrizia, she acts out how it’s possible to set your sights on someone wealthy and fall in love with him. Their courtship has a lusty imploring affection.”

Hollywood Reporter

“Alongside the inevitably fabulous period costume and production design, the high point is Gaga’s full-tilt performance, even — or perhaps especially — when she morphs into Steven Van Zandt on ‘The Sopranos’ while ordering a hit on her estranged husband,” writes David Rooney .

“In a performance more often than not dialed up to 110, Gaga puts on a transfixing show, bringing fierce charisma and ferocious drive to Patrizia, an accountant at her family’s trucking company who married Maurizio Gucci in 1972 and had him gunned down by a hitman in 1995. Even when she’s just lighting a cigarette or stirring an espresso, Gaga hurls herself into the character with savage gusto. Whenever she’s onscreen, the movie bristles with electricity.”

“Gaga, who has long been a world-class scholar in the serving of lewks, makes the costumes speak for her character as her style evolves from swinging-’60s office sexpot — one character compares her, early on, to Elizabeth Taylor, whom she’s often made up to resemble — to ’80s power-suit boss lady, complete with gold snake choker and voluminous black bouffant hair,” writes Dana Stevens .

“Gaga’s performance and self-presentation are, in the best sense, operatic.”

Adam Driver in a cream, cable-knit sweater and Lady Gaga in a black turtleneck in the mountains

Lady Gaga and Adam Driver serve up alpine glamour on the set of ‘House of Gucci’

Lady Gaga and Adam Driver in the mountains. In turtleneck sweaters. That’s it. That’s the tweet.

March 10, 2021

“Gucci is a label built on a carefully concocted air of tasteful luxury, but House of Gucci is a movie that mostly understands itself to be high-end trash,” writes Alison Willmore .

“No one onscreen has a better grasp of this than Lady Gaga. ... There’s a touch of Nomi Malone to Gaga’s performance, which is fueled by a barely disguised ravenousness, a desire to eat the world in one determined bite. ... Gaga is wildly watchable in the role, broad but unwinking, an absolute scream, and the movie only really makes sense when it’s about her.”

A movie poster of a woman wearing red lipstick and a fishnet veil

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“[A]t the center of it all is Gaga’s Patrizia, who Maurizio declares is a dead ringer for Elizabeth Taylor. (You can kind of see his point.),” writes Alissa Wilkinson .

“She schemes, she cries, she makes decisions Maurizio’s too spineless to make himself. She calls a psychic on TV and becomes her best friend. She strokes Paolo’s ego and stabs him in the back. Gaga climbs inside the skin of — if not the real Patrizia — a fantastical approximation who smokes like a chimney, narrows her eyes till you expect lasers to shoot out, and turns every single scene she appears in into a grand, glorious showcase. Her hand gestures alone are worthy of close reading. She’s Lady Macbeth as diva, darling, and dancing queen.”

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Christi Carras reports on the entertainment industry for the Los Angeles Times. She previously covered entertainment news for The Times after graduating from UCLA and working at Variety, the Hollywood Reporter and CNN Newsource.

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‘House Of Gucci’ review: Lady Gaga’s bad romance soon turns ugly

The pop icon brings down the fashion house in a must-watch drama

F ew movies enjoy a viral moment before they’re even released, but few movies have Lady Gaga improvising an iconic line like: “Father, son and House of Gucci”. There’s more to this opulent crime biopic than kitsch, but kitsch is a big part of its appeal. Directed without restraint by Ridley Scott, it’s a bewildering blend of high fashion, high camp and high tragedy that’s chaotic but also wildly entertaining.

It’s worth noting that the real-life Guccis have said they’re “truly disappointed” in Scott’s film dramatising some of their lowest moments. “They are stealing the identity of a family to make a profit,” complained Patrizia Gucci, who’s not to be confused with Gaga’s central character in the movie, Patrizia Reggiani . It’s also worth noting that Scott has dismissed their criticism rather blithely by saying: “You have to remember that one Gucci was murdered and another went to jail for tax evasion so you can’t be talking to me about making a profit.” If the director treats their high-stakes machinations as fair game, he doesn’t do so callously. A more sombre and forensic account of the family’s calamitous infighting would probably be more judgemental, too.

The film begins in disco-era Milan with a young Patrizia Reggiani wooing bookish Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver), whose father Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons) owns 50 per cent of the family fashion empire. Snobbish Rodolfo doesn’t think she’s good enough to marry a Gucci, but Maurizio digs in his heels and Patrizia isn’t put off. Soon enough, they’re walking down the aisle to George Michael ‘s ‘Faith’: a witty soundtrack choice in a film that’s full of them. Fully embracing the Gucci name as her own, Patrizia realises she can turn her and Maurizio into a major power couple by schmoozing his flashy uncle Aldo (Al Pacino), owner of Gucci’s other 50 per cent. Aldo has a son of his own, hopeless wannabe designer Paolo (Jared Leto), but Aldo’s only too happy to brand him an “idiot” in front of everyone else.

At first, Maurizio seems ambivalent about the family business and Patrizia is painted as the instigator. House of Gucci may be a film drenched in ostentatious and deliciously dated ’80s glamour, but it offers a more modern take on misogyny. Patrizia’s opinions aren’t just undervalued because she’s an outsider who married into the clan, but also because she’s a woman claiming space next to incredibly vain and dominating men. When Maurizio discovers some ambition of his own, her days are numbered, sowing the seeds for the family’s ultimate tragedy.

With a runtime exceeding two and a half hours, House of Gucci is long, sprawling and tonally all over the place. It lurches from relatively tender father-son moments to, well, a scene where Leto pisses on a silk scarf. The main performances aren’t entirely complimentary either – a bravura Gaga and scene-stealing Leto go bigger than Driver and Irons, with Pacino somewhere in between – but somehow it works. Few films can build Oscar buzz and feel like an instant camp classic, but few films are quite like House of Gucci .

Director: Ridley Scott
Starring: Lady Gaga, Jared Leto, Adam Driver
Release date: November 26 (UK cinemas)
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We can’t confirm the exact number, but by conservative estimates, we counted roughly a half-dozen different movies going on within the chic hallways and glamorous wings of House of Gucci , sometimes rubbing up seductively against each other and often colliding head-on, leaving everyone slightly dazed. A quick rundown:

-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, backstabbings 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. Leading us to…

-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. Speaking of, how about…

-A Method-actor scenery-chewing competition, in which Al Pacino attempts to defend his wide-eyed, sound-normal-THEN-GET-VERY-LOUD crown against fellow Oscar-winner and up-and-coming contender in the category, Jared Leto . (You’ve likely heard about Leto’s prosthetics-heavy, spicy-ah-meatball portrayal of the cartoonish Paolo Gucci. If his performance is doubling as an audition for an upcoming Chef Boy-ar-dee biopic, he pretty much has a lock on the part.) Spoiler: The match ends in a draw.

-An eat-the-rich drama that reminds us that the one percent are not like you or me, no sir-ee, and that behind every great fortune is a crime, or two, or 12. Scott has dipped into this well before, notably with All the Money in the World (2017), his take on the 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III in Rome. You likely remember that film for its impressive, last-minute substitution of Christopher Plummer as J.P. Getty the First after the original actor, Kevin Spacey, became… let’s say morally dubious. And were the late, great Plummer alive today, you can imagine a few parts here that might be improved by digitally inserting him into the mix.

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And then there’s the tale of a woman scorned, and that movie is really the only one in House of Gucci that you need to concern yourself with. When that film takes over the screen, everything else cowers in its wake. Your pulse quickens, your pupils dilate, your hairs stand on end. You feel as if someone has just grabbed you brusquely by the lapels, shaken and open-palmed slapped you, and then planted a soul kiss on you. One person, and one person alone, deserves credit for turning this into something bigger than the sum of its disparate, conflicting parts, and occasionally launching it into the stratosphere. She was born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. You might know her by a different name.

Let us now praise 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 in to 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 knowingest 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. You’re not even sure her Reggiani is a gold digger at first, or if she’s playing some sort of long game when she engineers a meet-cute with Maurizio at a bookstore after they’ve disco-danced at a party. There’s a sense that this woman is actually in love, and so long as she’s got those Adam Driver-wide shoulders to lean on, everything will be fine. But once the now-Mrs. Gucci begins to see possible weaknesses in the family dynamic to exploit, and how it may be possible to deliver her husband what she believes is his birthright — total Gucci domination — you can see the gears moving. There are so many scenes in which Gaga simply sits back, and you see her eyes moving from person to person, taking everything in, calculating moves without ever turning Patrizia into some bad caricature of a villain or a dinner-theater Lady Macbeth.

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‘House of Gucci’ sounds like a movie that’s so bad it’s good. That’s only half right.

“House of Gucci” is a movie about passion, not fashion .

The soap-opera-like tale, which tells the true story of the 1995 murder of fashion heir Maurizio Gucci by thugs hired by his ex-wife Patrizia Reggiani, is also — if you believe the trailer, which touts the following themes, in all caps — about money, family, power, betrayal, sex, loyalty, scandal, ambition and murder. Presumably, all that content explains why the film needs to be 2 hours 37 minutes long. By comparison, “ Dune ” — which is only a saga of the rise of a psychic space Messiah destined to lead a race of oppressed hallucinogenic-drug miners to freedom on a desert planet overrun by giant, industrial-machinery-eating sandworms — somehow manages to be two minutes shorter.

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The new film doesn’t even get to the divorce or the murder until after the two-hour mark, which is well beyond the point at which a lot of very fine movies have already rolled their closing credits. So what does “Gucci” do with all that precious time?

Not much, as it turns out.

Directed by Ridley Scott , it’s one of those prestige true-crime dramas that — unlike the director’s thematically similar, yet deliciously, darkly cynical “ All the Money in the World ,” about the 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III — run through a checklist of events without ever seeming to draw any cautionary lesson or larger point.

None of which would be a problem, if “Gucci” were half as much fun as I’m about to make it sound. After all, who doesn’t love a good, tawdry scandal?

On paper, at least, the facts have the makings of make an entertaining, if campy yarn. Based on Sara Gay Forden’s 2000 nonfiction book , the film follows the relationship between wealthy Gucci scion Maurizio (Adam Driver), a nerdy law student who, as the film opens in 1978, seems to have little interest in pursuing the family business, and Patrizia (Lady Gaga), a woman of modest means who’s working for her father’s trucking company. “Mafia!,” snorts Maurizio’s father Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons) dismissively, before briefly disinheriting his son.

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Patrizia comes across like a bit of a gold-digger. Her eyes light up at the name Gucci when she and Maurizio first meet, and then she seems to be stalking him. Once things turn sour, she seeks the advice of a TV psychic (Salma Hayek), who becomes an accessory to the film’s climactic crime.

The rest of the story concerns the ups and downs of their marriage, set against a backdrop of the Gucci empire’s business dealings: Charges of tax fraud are brought against Rodolfo’s brother Aldo (Al Pacino), instigated by his ne’er-do-well, would-be designer son Paolo (Jared Leto), against whom countercharges of copyright infringement are brought. “I don’t need anyone,” Paolo declaims, in one of several lines destined to find their way to a midnight quote-along screening of the film. “I’m Paolo — Paolo Gucci! And I’m going to start my own line.” This short speech is followed by a shot of Paolo urinating on a vintage, Gucci-logo scarf, designed by his Uncle Rodolfo.

At another point, the ambitious Patrizia says, with the menace — and heavy, vaguely Eastern European accent — of a Countess Dracula, “It’s time to take out the trash.”

Good stuff. Except, not really. (I’ll admit the costumes are kind of fabulous.)

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Speaking of accents: The Italian-inflected English dialogue (by Becky Johnston and Robert Bentivegna) is all over the map. Pacino sounds like his character grew up in the Bronx section of Florence. Irons struggles to shake off the Old Vic. And Driver doesn’t really try much at all. Leto, for his part sounds (and even looks) a little like Mario of the video game. The actor is unrecognizable under a bald cap, mustache and bushy sideburns that look like a family of woolly bear caterpillars have colonized his head, a paunchy fat suit and pudgy facial prosthetics.

But wouldn’t it have been simpler to just cast someone who already looks like that?

Apologies for making any of this sound like “Gucci” could be one of those so-bad-it’s-good larks. For all its imperfections, the sin this movie is most guilty of is taking itself too seriously. As a colleague observed after a recent screening, the film would have been a lot more fun if Adam McKay had directed it.

“I need an espresso,” sighs Maurizio, encountering one of the plot’s parade of pointless headaches. So might you, dear reader, but I wouldn’t recommend consuming one before the movie. Not without a bathroom break.

R. At area theaters. Contains strong language, some sex and brief nudity, violence and smoking. 157 minutes.

Blumhouse Movie ‘SOULM8TE’ Will Expand the ‘M3GAN’ Universe in 2026

In addition to next year’s sequel M3GAN 2.0 , arriving in theaters June 27, 2025, the M3GAN Universe will also be expanding with a spinoff horror movie titled SOULM8TE !

Deadline reports today that the upcoming SOULM8TE is being billed as a ’90s-style erotic thriller with a “new technological twist,” and it’s coming to theaters on January 2, 2026 .

Kate Dolan ( You Are Not My Mother ) will direct the film.

Deadline details in their report today, “Dolan rewrote an original draft written by Rafael Jordan ( Salvage Marines ), with the story by James Wan , Ingrid Bisu and Jordan.”

In SOULM8TE, a man acquires an Artificially Intelligent android to cope with the loss of his recently deceased wife. In an attempt to create a truly sentient partner, he inadvertently turns a harmless lovebot into a deadly soulmate.

“Fundamentally, I view this film as an exploration of relationships and loneliness,” Dolan said in a statement this afternoon. “Despite technological advances, there are enduring human truths we cannot escape, and I am looking forward to delving into those depths.”

“ SOULM8TE is a thrilling and seductive addition to the M3GAN universe. We’re excited to partner with Kate to bring this story to life with her unique cinematic vision and point of view,” said James Wan, who produces through his company Atomic Monster.

M3GAN was a massive viral hit for Blumhouse back in 2022, the film scaring up $180 million at the worldwide box office. It’s no secret why Blumhouse is all-in on all things M3GAN.

Stay tuned for more as we learn it…

Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

‘Dogtooth’: The Absurdist Family Drama and Blueprint of Yorgos Lanthimos’ Career

“It didn’t really start as a story about family dysfunction and such. In the beginning, I was wondering about family life and parenting in general and if the way we think about it would ever really change.”

In an interview with Pamela Jahn of Electric Sheep Magazine , Yorgos Lanthimos muses on his initial thought process behind the creation of his acclaimed 2009 absurdist family drama Dogtooth . In the above quote, the director who would come to be known to English-speaking audiences through hilariously nightmarish features like The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Poor Things , and the upcoming Kinds of Kindness explains how the idea of Dogtooth slowly began to form after a conversation with some soon-to-be-newlywed friends.

In the wake of their union, Lanthimos would make some slight and friendly jabs at their decision to marry and start a family despite the high chances of divorce. A joke on his part, but the joke only caused his friends to retaliate and become defensive of their decision. When the idea of the perfect family was briefly and jokingly challenged, an instinctual need to preserve the image took over. A defensiveness that would be taken to the extreme in Dogtooth .

At this point in his career, Yorgos Lanthimos has steadily developed a reputation in Hollywood for his idiosyncratic films that often veer into black comedic territory. Having recruited the likes of Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone among many others for his films, Lanthimos’s unorthodox and often-deadpan satires have afforded him a large audience that slowly has become familiar with his style.

Filled with eloquent and biting dialogue and a straight-faced approach to outlandish concepts such as family curses and relationship hotels, Lanthimos fancies a good laugh from the absurdities of modern society. Just when his films present taboo and morbid topics that refuse to spare the audience’s needs for good taste, he chooses to squeeze as much comedy from the situation as he can while maintaining a tone so utterly serious it more closely resembles aliens impersonating humanity’s desperate need for normalcy.

It’s a style that was first exposed to a wider audience with 2009’s Dogtooth . His third feature-length film at that point, Lanthimos’s experience with his newlywed friends eventually blossomed into a nightmarish oddity of a family drama. Dogtooth is a story of an artificial microcosm created within a very real world with a family patriarch raising his three adult children in his luxurious home without any access to the outside world.

The two daughters and son are left without schooling or socialization, confined to a world artificially crafted by the father and mother. The children are taught intentionally fake terminology for anything that may inspire curiosity of the world beyond their fence. Salt is “telephone”, little yellow flowers are “zombies”, genitals are “keyboards”, etc.

Boredom and lack of real supervision outside of their general confinement has repressed the overgrown children mentally and sexually, causing them to explore their sexuality in unusual ways. While the father pays someone from the outside to experiment with his son, the two daughters are often left to experiment in their own regard. Activities involving licking each other as part of a barter system is the norm; a mixture of playful experimentation and uncomfortably casual incest.

Emerging from the Greek Weird Wave of filmmakers, Lanthimos’s career truly took off after an era of Greek cinema hot off the heels of a late 2000s financial crisis. Despite that, Greek cinema was saw its fair share of commercial success with the rise of satirical films in the 1990s. In an industry that was already tackling taboo subjects (such as in the 1990 Greek sex comedy hit Safe Sex ), Lanthimos took it up a notch with Dogtooth , a film that included topics of sex inside a larger examination of a toxic family unit.

The Greek director is often closely associated with experimental satires, particularly for his filmography from the 2010s and onward. His awkward and transgressive conversations on the fragility of the family unit, the nasty undercurrent of “polite society”, and the artificial hollowness of modern love have become a staple of his films such as The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Favourite , and most recently with Poor Things .

But despite his transition into Hollywood and English-language films, Lanthimos’s blueprint for unusual and stilted satire has lived on in every one of his films. His nonchalant attitude towards his depictions of sex, family, and society as brittle foundations of a broken core are characterized through his trademark deadpan humor, dark comedy, and comically on-the-nose observational dialogue. He has entered a point in his career where larger audiences are able to spot his idiosyncrasies with increasing ease.

Dogtooth is the beginning of Lanthimos and writer Efthimis Filippou’s exposure to a wider audience and a key film that establishes their weird trademarks. In fact, Dogtooth is Lanthimos and Filippou in their rawest and most subtly terrifying form to date. While categorized as a psychological drama, the absurd nature of the film’s premise makes way for a plethora of icky and downright horrifying concepts.

There is a certain gloss to Lanthimos’s style that becomes more abundant in his transition to Hollywood, but the borderline surreal world in Dogtooth is refused that chance. We see the children – specifically the eldest daughter – grow curious about the outside world and themselves, but their journey of self-discovery is guided by their extremely limited understanding of even the most basic concepts.

A running bit in the film involves the siblings falsely believing that they have a brother living just outside of the fence. But when a stray cat enters their garden and is killed by one of the kids with shears, the father uses this as an opportunity to teach the kids about the dangers of stray cats. Faking an attack from one of these cats through fake blood, the father scares his children into believing that cats were responsible for the death of their unseen brother, further establishing an unseen hostile world that the kids must avoid at all costs.

We bear witness to a dystopian nightmare as the father continues to instill fear of the outside world to his kids. A dystopian nightmare without a hint of sci-fi to soften the blow. In a 2010 interview posted on The Rumpus , Lanthimos commented on how his initial idea for the film placed the story in a sci-fi/futuristic setting before ultimately shifting gears to the normal modern world.

Lanthimos mused on how the introduction of an entirely new world could have distracted from the fundamentals of the story, deciding that a story like Dogtooth ’s can happen at any time. Dystopian future or not, the idea of an extremely sheltered family going to great lengths to not accommodate to a modern social climate is something rooted in more real-life families than we’d care to admit.

In 2015 for instance, the release of the documentary titled The Wolfpack tackles this very issue with the Angulo family. The mother and children were confined to their Lower East Side apartment for years thanks to their father, with their main connection to the outside world being movies they would quote and meticulously recreate for their home videos.

It’s a natural curiosity to ponder what we see in media and if our world knowledge is limited, all we can do is imitate and recreate. It’s what we see the eldest daughter do in Dogtooth once the family security guard sneaks in some VHS movies. She quotes the movies to herself and while performing her home activities and once the father finds out, he takes it out on the guard by mercilessly beating her with her VHS player.

Another real-life case I thought of during Dogtooth was the horrific situation of the Turpin family, in which 13 children and dependent adults were routinely abused by their parents and mostly kept in captivity, They went outside on the rarest of occasions and were otherwise kept at home malnourished, unwashed, among other awful things. It wasn’t until 2018 when the children – all due to the escape of daughter Jordan Turpin – were able to leave the captive abuse of their parents.

Lanthimos recognizes the inherently abusive core of these types of situations, but while he in no way downplays the seriousness of this family dynamic, his ability to take the family in Dogtooth and humorously tackle the baffling absurdity of what makes a family a real family unit is what makes his films so awkwardly hilarious. How his characters are known for speaking their minds in overtly blunt fashion that makes for a good laugh right before the whiplash of seeing those characters suddenly get hurt or maimed in unexpected ways.

The horror of Dogtooth is its mundanity with such a touchy subject. We have films that make it their goal to shock the audience through an overbearing sense of edginess that feels akin to Bart Simpson clanking pans together for attention. Lanthimos lets us sit with this family and dares us to laugh at a father forcing his children and wife to bark in a hairbrained attempt to instill the fear of cats into the kids.

Even when Lanthimos explored other ideas in his later films, the core of what makes Dogtooth is ever-present. The transparent emptiness of the perfect family and perfect surroundings are touched on again in The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Favourite , building on the fundamentals set in stone by his 2009 breakout feature and catapulting both his name and style into the mainstream sphere.

When being interviewed for Poor Things by The Guardian in late 2023, Lanthimos opened up about his sense of humor and what makes him laugh. He specifically pinpoints awkward human interaction as the key to his funny bone, something all the more apparent when watching the characters in his films try and mostly fail looking and feeling the part of even being human, much less making such connections with others.

The same interview also reveals how Lanthimos himself didn’t initially pick up on the glaring similarities between Poor Things and Dogtooth , eventually coming to realize that the former is a spiritual sequel/spinoff of the latter. Both films touch on created family and how perspective can be warped and manipulated as early as childbirth (or in Poor Things ’s Bella Baxter’s case, rebirth). The films both heavily rely on the comedy that can arise from that idea, mainly in the form of social interaction and learning about the complex clumsiness of the real world.

Dogtooth may not be Yorgos Lanthimos at his most refined, but there is a rawness to his artificial world in the film that is far scarier than people will give it credit for. A type of horror that does not seek to scare or even unsettle us. The horror is in the concept of children living in a fake world and how casually they go about believing the lies of their parents. The kind of horror that can bleed chuckles from the audience in response to incestuous games, cat violence, human barking, and physical violence stemming from VHS tapes.

Dogtooth is the kind of quiet disruption that Lanthimos would carry with him to Hollywood, making it the ground zero for what would be a successful and odd career. It may not be his first feature, but it’s the film that made people take notice of the wonderfully weird Greek director. Over a decade later and we are still seeing the DNA of Dogtooth in his films. But no matter how much his filmmaking and budget have improved over the years, it’s important to never forget the fundamentals – which is that humans do not and will never know how to talk to each other.

And sometimes you just can’t help but laugh at the thought.

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Engaged in a mysterious relationship with her dead best friend from the Army, a female Afghanistan veteran comes head to head with her Vietnam vet grandfather at the family's ancestral lake ... Read all Engaged in a mysterious relationship with her dead best friend from the Army, a female Afghanistan veteran comes head to head with her Vietnam vet grandfather at the family's ancestral lake house. Engaged in a mysterious relationship with her dead best friend from the Army, a female Afghanistan veteran comes head to head with her Vietnam vet grandfather at the family's ancestral lake house.

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'House of the Dragon' dazzles the eyes and boggles the mind in Season 2

War looms as hbo’s ‘game of thrones’ prequel returns with stunning visuals, explicit sex and violence, and a bewildering abundance of characters..

Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy, with Matt Smith as husband Dameon) plots to reclaim the Iron Throne in Season 2 of “House of the Dragon.”

At one point amid the swirling pools of violence, beauty, darkness, deviant sexuality, familial feuding and treachery of Season 2 of HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” a major character references the Iron Throne and then deadpans: “It’s a big chair. Made of swords.”

Got it. That much we know for certain after the eight-season run of the mostly beloved (we said “mostly,” we’re not getting into that final season) and iconic “Game of Thrones” (2011-19), and the first season of the prequel, “House of the Dragon,” which was set nearly 200 years before the events of the original. As always, pretty much everything else is up for grabs.

Some 602 days after the shocking and game-changing events of the Season 1 finale, the sophomore season is a visually glorious epic that once again feels like appointment TV (HBO and Max are releasing one episode per week for the next eight weeks), even though it’s nearly impossible to keep up with what has to be one of the largest ensemble casts in TV history, and it’s a bit of a slow build before we get to the dragons clashing in the skies. (The first four of eight total episodes were made available to critics.)

With Matt Smith, Emma D’Arcy, Olivia Cooke, Rhys Ifans and Ewan Mitchell leading that impressive cast; some of the most expansive and stunning location shoots, VFX and production design of any series in the world, and a tangled and Shakespearean storyline punctuated by some gruesome and shocking deaths, “HOTD” is cinematic entertainment that, to invoke the cliché, you should see on the biggest possible home screen. (Put. That. Phone. Away.)

There’s no “Previously, on ‘House of the Dragon’ ” recap to kick off Season 2; we’re plunged right into the aftermath of the Season 1 finale, with viewers expected to either have studied up on past events, or deciding they’ll just sit back and enjoy the ride, even if things get confusing from time to time. Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) is in deep mourning after the revenge-minded and icy-veined Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) killed her son Lucerys, an act that all but seals the deal for a prolonged and bloody war between two factions.

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On the island of Dragonstone, we have Team Black, which includes:

Rhaenyra , the eldest child of King Viserys, who aims to take back what is rightfully hers: the Iron Throne.
Daemon (a scene-stealing Matt Smith), who is the uncle/husband (!) to Rhaenyra and a formidable warrior who can never be trusted.
The wise and world-weary Rhaenys (Eve Best), aka “The Queen Who Never Was,” and her husband, Lord Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint), who is in charge of a powerful navy.

At King’s Landing, we have Team Green, which includes:

The petulant and unsteady and nasty King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney), the “HOTD” counterpart to Joffrey from “GOT.”
Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), the widow of King Viserys I and Rhaenyra’s childhood friend.
Otto Hightower (reliable old hand Rhys Ifans), Alicent’s father and the Hand of the King, who urges prudence every time Aegon pounds the table and calls for war.
The aforementioned Prince Aemond, who is spoiling for war and struts about like a 1980s hair band rock star.
Ser Criston Cole (Fabian Frankel), the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.

The icy-veined Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) is spoiling for war.

These are just some of the main players in a series that includes characters named Jacaerys, Alyn, Alys, Arryk, Erryk, Larys and Mysaria — and we’re not even getting into the names of the various dragons. With juicy bits of dialogue such as, “They no longer breathe our air,” and, “She is to be treated as a traitor to the crown,” not to mention some wickedly funny asides, as when a couple of characters are referred to as “imbecilic lickspittles,” and all that swordplay and the great costumes, “HOTD” has to be irresistible material for the cast, and they’re all superb. (In addition to the aforementioned group, other standouts include Sonoya Mizuno as the resourceful Mysaria, aka “The White Worm,” and Matthew Needham as the club-footed Lord Larys Strong, who is the “HOTD” version of the Master of Whisperers Varys from “GOT.”)

Even when things slow to a crawl as one side or another plots, schemes, argues and/or tries to make alliances, the production values are never less than excellent, what with all the cavernous interiors and the abundance of candles and ooh, they have such great maps. There are a few scenes of explicit sex, including some full-frontal male nudity, but these are dark times, even darker than usual, and there’s not much time for frivolity. On at least three occasions, there are incidents of violence that leave us stunned, including a massive, fourth-episode battle sequence that sets the stage for what promises to be an exciting second half of Season 2. The gods and the dragons will see to that.

President Joe Biden and first lady Dr. Jill Biden pictured during the roll call at the virtual 2020 Democratic National Convention.

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House of Gucci movie review & film summary (2021)
Unsurprisingly, visual design is how "House of Gucci" leaves its strongest impression. With a story set across Rome, Milan, New York and even the Alps—where Maurizio and Patrizia vacation, and an incredible Camille Cottin makes an appearance as Maurizio's romantic-interest-to-be—the movie highlights the luxury and lavishness of the ...
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