Credits Images: Imdb.com
House of Gucci – USA, November 25, 2021
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Screenplay: Becky Johnston, Roberto Bentivegna (based on The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed, by Sara Gay Forden)
Cast: Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons, Salma Hayek, Al Pacino, Jack Huston, Reeve Carney, Camille Cottin, Youssef Kerkour,
Duration: 157 min.
Credits Images: Imdb.com
Casa Gucci is, at certain times, one of the funniest movies of the year. Which is an odd finding, given that the Ridley Scott-directed film is a biography of the scandalous story of the dysfunctional family behind the titular fashion empire. Covering nearly two decades from the late '70s to the mid-'90s, the film revolves around the relationship between Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) and Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver). Maurizio is an heir who was initially rejected by his father (Jeremy Irons) for marrying Patrizia, a girl the patriarch considers low-class, before being courted back into the family business by his greedy uncle Aldo Gucci (Al Pacino). , who sees in Maurizio more potential to run the family business than his dim-witted son, Paolo Gucci (Jared Leto).
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With the narrative circling these five characters, we see a mixture of betrayal, remorse, greed and even murder. So humor isn't necessarily what you'd expect from a family drama about the rise and fall of an Empire. However, like the fashion world, Casa Gucci is an extravagant film. With a star-studded cast, a pop soundtrack exploding on screen, elegant and vulgar looks and a production design attentive to highlighting luxury, the film is a package of festive exaggeration. Even the exaggeratedly accented performances of spoken English as Italian work to establish that we're looking at an overly silly melodrama with a perverse sense of humor.
The fact that the story is set in Rome, Milan, New York and even the Alps benefits the aesthetic part of the experience, as well as providing a certain grandeur to the film. A soap opera epic, I would say. It's when we see Lady Gaga in a stark red tracksuit slowly sipping her espresso while threatening a woman on top of a mountain, or the various sequences of an unrecognizable Jared Leto causing laughter with his performance of a spoiled and eccentric big baby, that Casa Gucci gains strength when it makes room for comic absurdity. In these moments, the film even reminds me of The Wolf of Wall Street, in relation to the dramaturgy about money, manipulation and interests being energized through visual exaggerations and dark humor.
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What's the problem then? Well, Casa Gucci always seems to want to alternate between eccentric and “serious drama”. I believe this is because of Adam Driver's character, the introspective and quiet Maurizio Gucci. See, the film contains three well-designed acts: the first introduces us to and establishes all the characters; the second (and best) that delves into the chess game of betrayal amid Gucci; and the third focused on Maurizio's rise as head of the dynasty. The first two acts are Gaga's, simply and purely seen through her character inserting herself and coveting the family fortune, creating machinations for her and her husband to take the crown, while the brilliant eccentricity of the fashion world and colorful supporting characters orbit the character. , including the great contrast of the serene Maurizio in this universe of strong personalities and vibrant colors.
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Even noting problems in these initial two-thirds of the film, such as the delay in establishing Patrizia and Maurizio's domestic relationship or the superficial father-son drama of the Guccis, we have a succession of great narrative developments for the tragic climax of the real story. And then the third act comes to unravel the film, deciding to focus on conversations about the company's shares, rebuilding the Gucci empire with designers and entrepreneurs coming to the fore, brand expansion and tax evasion difficulties, etc. Sure, it's moderately interesting to know about these elements that give the movie context, but first, Scott doesn't quite manage to extract much drama from these jumbled developments with complicated plot tangents and information dump that take us away from where the movie works: the circle. familiar. And second that it prints a tone of sobriety that detonates the plot in the failed attempt to create an arc of the ascension of Michael Corleone of fashion with Maurizio, resulting in the worst choice of the work: to make Gaga a supporting.
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O roteiro amplo de Becky Johnston e Roberto Bentivegna parece mais próximo de uma minissérie do que um longa-metragem, com a direção de Scott caindo na morosidade de um docudrama sisudo no terceiro ato. A energia do filme despenca sempre que Gaga está fora da câmera, e a alternância de tom, especialmente no núcleo de Maurizio, entre a diversão excêntrica e o drama severo cheio de informações históricas, restringem a qualidade da obra. A consequência é um desfecho corrido e anticlimático para o principal escândalo dos Gucci: o assassinato. Casa Gucci é um filme que funciona na linguagem extravagante de dinâmicas familiares em uma história sobre interesses e traições, com a personagem de Gaga como fio condutor da narrativa. Pena que o longa quer ser muito mais do que isso sem o tempo e capacidade para ser.