Critics are divided: is the thriller-drama House of Gucci, in cinemas across Italy from December 16, a big flop or a huge success?
There has been so much talk about House of Gucci that now that it has finally arrived in all the cinemas in Italy, one has the feeling of having already seen it and already knowing everything. The film directed by Ridley Scott was certainly the most talked about and also somewhat spoiled cinematic product of the year, but net of the countless memes, previews and social posts, what is the truth after having actually seen it?
The premises were promising, a super production by a great American director and a stellar cast . We have Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino , Salma Hayek , Jared Leto and what remains are perhaps the masterful interpretations of the actors, above all Lady Gaga and Driver, respectively in the roles of Patrizia Reggiani and Maurizio Gucci . Having said this, everything else is a grotesque and exaggerated mess, which transforms the saga of the Gucci Family into a celebration of caricatured characters bordering on the comical (or perhaps we should say ridiculous?).
Scroll down to read the review of House of Gucci and Tom Ford’s words on the film
It is therefore not surprising that the royal Gucci family has already taken some widely the distances, this had been anticipated even before the film came out as there were no more ties between the family and the brand, moving very heavy criticisms and first steps to advance a legal battle. The reason is clear: the Guccis come out badly. Portrayed a bit as incompetent, a bit as the perfect incarnation of the stereotype of the vulgarity of those fashionable aristocracies of the 80s, a bit ridiculed, perhaps the only one who comes out with dignity is Patrizia Reggiani.
The film, in its very long 150 minutes, certainly fails to tell the complexity of a family that was the most important Florentine dynasty of Italian fashion and of an entire system, which was the Made in Italy of those years. Ambitious project and excellent intentions, but with a result that is not exactly equal to the ambitions: the final product is lacking and flat and that bitter aftertaste that takes you when the credits start, does not leave you for a while. We have witnessed yet another failure in telling a page of Italian fashion history by an American production that inevitably watches with an American lens and perhaps American prejudice. The stereotype reigns supreme so much so that the film becomes an endless farce, between badly done marked accents and excessive gesticulation, where obviously any aspect of complexity is missing. And it is difficult not to wonder how it would have gone if there had been an Italian director behind it, for once.
Scroll down to read the review of House of Gucci and Tom Ford’s words on the film
Jared Leto as Paolo Gucci
Even Tom Ford , clearly piqued, wondered if the film was a farce. The American designer wrote that ” he laughed a lot during the film, but wonders if that was the right reaction” in what many call a brutal review on Airmail , but which is perhaps more of a sharp reflection on the part of someone who actually lived through those events. The young Texan designer took over as creative director of Gucci in 1990, lifting the fashion house out of the financial quagmire and anonymity it had gotten itself into, becoming the creative architect of Gucci’s glorious ’90s. He says he was deeply disturbed by the exaggeratedly cumbersome figure of Paolo Gucci and concludes by saying that often “films remain imprinted in people’s minds, unfairly replacing what was reality”. Between caricatures and portraits that are both incomplete and exaggerated, the film is a big no. And Tom Ford ‘s words may be the definitive review.