Ridley Scott's 'House of Gucci' Review Thread

Rotten Tomatoes: 69% (6.10 in average rating) with 61 reviews

Metacritic: 60/100 (33 critics)

As with other movies, the scores are set to change as time passes. Meanwhile, I'll post some short reviews on the movie.

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.

-David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

It may not resonate with the biblical weight of “There Will Be Blood” or scald with the hedonistic swagger of “The Wolf of Wall Street,” but Scott’s film offers a shrewdly divided fable about the way things tend to get cheapened as they grow more lucrative. As art sells its soul to commerce. Maurizio was a Gucci, and Patrizia made him merely rich. It would be hard to imagine a more fitting place to see it than at a big multiplex full of steaming franchise shit over Thanksgiving weekend.

-David Ehrlich, IndieWire: B+

House of Gucci is an icepick docudrama that has a great deal of fun with its grand roster of ambitious scoundrels, but it’s never less than a straight-faced and nimbly accomplished movie.

-Owen Gleiberman, Variety

In the end, this is Lady Gaga’s film: her watchability suffuses the picture, an arrabbiata sauce of wit, scorn and style.

-Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian: 4/5

“House of Gucci” clocks in at two hours at 37 minutes and for the most part moves at a good pace, though does tend to plod when Gaga’s not on screen and the plot turns to Maurizio’s business dealings as Gucci competes with rival fashion houses for fresh talent. There are also some on-the-nose needle drops and those seeking Oscar-ready earnestness might not get the film’s cheeky commitment to mixing old-school “Dynasty” melodrama with “Succession”-esque wit. But be warned, fellow best actress contenders: The power of Gaga is undeniable as she rules “House of Gucci” with powerful panache and addictive swagger.

-Brian Truitt, USA Today: 3/4

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.

-Tara Bennett, IGN: 6.0 "okay"

For now, though, at least we have House of Gucci, the kind of movie where a woman can tell her husband “it’s time to take out the trash” and mean his family, a movie with multiple candlelit bathtub scenes, a film in which an entire scene is set to the sounds of “I’m a Believer” in Italian, where the imperfect is elevated to perfection. I left my screening elated and wanted to rewatch it immediately. Several times. Long live cinema.

-Alissa Wilkinson, Vox:

If only Scott’s vision was as visually dazzling as a Gaga video. “Gucci” is a pale, ugly film whose underwhelming glamour doesn’t match the grandeur of a European fashion house. It looks as pricey as a knock-off Gucci bag on Canal Street.

-Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post: 1/4

Perhaps “House of Gucci” should have been a designer impostor itself, going the tawdry roman à clef route rather than tether itself to a true story in which it’s only sort of interested in fully exploring. (“House of Bucci,” perhaps.) Or perhaps a filmmaker with a finer sense of the absurd than Ridley Scott could have crafted this tale as a vehicle that would go full “Dynasty.” Bad taste can be forgivable, and even an asset, in the world of fashion, but monotony is not.

-Alonso Duralde, The Wrap

The movie could easily become too much as well. That it doesn’t is both admirable and disappointing. On the one hand, Gucci comes so close to flowering into something bonkers that its more moderate tendencies feel like a tease. On the other hand, keeping the movie itself in check gives Gaga’s star an opportunity to burn even brighter: She might not deliver the most subtle performance, but she’s certainly magnetic. In the end, however, Patrizia Reggiani’s Wikipedia page is more entertaining than the middle hour of House Of Gucci. Maybe they’re saving the brain tumor and the pet parrot for the sequel?

-Katie Rife, The A.V. Club: C+

Adam Driver and Lady Gaga have legit chemistry together, and it’s still a kick to see Al Pacino roaring like a lion in winter. But Hayek and Irons are playing cardboard-thin characters, Leto flounders about as if he’s in a movie all his own, and “House of Gucci” feels coldly calculating when it should have been flush and warm with scandalous sensationalism.

-Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun Times: 2.5/4

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PLOT

The film follows the ambitious Patrizia Reggiani as she romances Maurizio Gucci and marries her way into the dynastic Italian luxury label. The family business holds little allure for bookish Maurizio, and the real power is held by his father Rodolfo and his uncle Aldo. If an outsider like Patrizia wants to be a true force at Gucci, she’ll have to pit the rest of the family against each other. Eventually, even Patrizia and Maurizio find themselves at odds, and her rage at him soon turns murderous.

DIRECTOR

Ridley Scott

WRITERS

Becky Johnston & Roberto Bentivegna (based on The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed by Sara Gay Forden)

MUSIC

Harry Gregson-Williams

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Dariusz Wolski

EDITOR

Claire Simpson

BUDGET

$75 million

Release date:

November 24, 2021

STARRING

• Lady Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani

• Adam Driver as Maurizio Gucci

• Jared Leto as Paolo Gucci

• Jeremy Irons as Rodolfo Gucci

• Salma Hayek as Giuseppina Auriemma

• Al Pacino as Aldo Gucci

• Jack Huston as Domenico De Sole

• Reeve Carney as Tom Ford

• Camille Cottin as Paola Franchi

• Vincent Riotta as Fernando Reggiani

Submitted November 23, 2021 at 06:32AM by SanderSo47 https://ift.tt/2ZcduBm