Mamma mia! Where to even start with this one… I tend to defend Ridley Scott with my every breath. The man reached the “legend” status a long, long time ago, so I give him all the benefit of the doubt regarding what he wants to shoot next. And when I heard he is behind House of Gucci starring Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino and Jared Leto, I was half excited and half sceptical. I will show my cards early; I love me some Driver and Pacino, I like Lady Gaga (even though I don’t think she is nearly as talented of an actress as others believe), and I still wonder how people take Jared seriously. But I had hoped that Sir Ridley would give us something unforgettable, unique and all-around fascinating. Well, House of Gucci is 100% unforgettable and unique alright, except for all the wrong reasons…
House of Gucci got me in the first half when the story was developing between Gaga and Adam’s characters, when we saw some of Gucci’s history and how even somebody named Gucci was sick and tired of all the pretentiousness around it. But even throughout the first half (and let’s face it, more like the first hour rather than half, because this film is way too long), there was a problem with the tone. The film felt uneven and unbalanced, almost as if you were to play two movies at the same time. At times, it felt like your stereotypical biographical drama and other times, some elements came off like the most bizarre SNL sketch during “Italian week”. And that was before Jared’s character showed up for the first time, as that was the moment; this film started to lose me.
See, there are actors and “actors”. There are great actors that could overcome a truly awful choice of everyone having an Italian accent and somehow give a decent performance. And then, you have “actors” who like to talk about how they studied all these books, methods and everything there was ever written about acting, and it shows on the screen. But not in a good way, because you can almost see the “wheels turning” as they do it. In House of Gucci, we see both groups in an almost equal split. I always said somebody like Driver or Al Pacino belongs in the first group. And somebody like Jared or even Lady Gaga in the second group. I would say I like Lady Gaga much more than Jared, that’s for sure, but even with her, there is always something “behind her eyes” when she is on the screen where she seems so ‘technical’, almost ‘robot-like’ I struggled with her in this film. But at least with her performance, you could kind of see what she was after… But we need to talk about Jared.
Holy shit, choices were made here. And nobody tried (at least it doesn’t seem like) to stop him. It seemed like Jared created this character in his mind. But instead of “possibly slightly eccentric Italian man”, he went with full on: “What if Mario and Luigi fucked, had a son who ate nothing but a pizza day and night, dripped Olive oil and felt like a walking stereotype of what your stereotypical American thinks is a stereotypical Italian?” Look, nobody truly “shined” in this film, mainly due to the accent decision (we will get there shortly) but when Jared arrived, this film took a dive. I think the only thing he could have done even worse would be, had his character been a full-on, CGI character of walking pizza. Yes, everyone would treat him the same, but instead of Jared in the heavy make-up, his character would play a pizza slice. That would have been the only worse decision he could have made, but given this film’s tone, even that wouldn’t feel that out of place.
I already hinted at the two biggest problems with House of Gucci – the length and the accents. I believe the runtime is self-explanatory, but the accents… Why, oh why. Why did nobody on the first day, after the very first take, raise their hand and say: “Look, I know we are supposed to be Italians, but maybe we just bin the accents altogether and focus on the acting?” For all I know, maybe somebody had done that and was executed immediately for not thinking “Italian enough”. Throughout the film, even the most competent actors felt out of place because they seemed too focused on their accents rather than on acting. I can honestly say I have never seen a film where it seemed like every actor in every scene was trying so hard to stay in their ridiculous-sounding accent. I genuinely believe that had the film been the same; same actors and director, they would simply drop the accents, and the film would instantly improve.
And that is the main issue with House of Gucci; you can tell there is some “meat” on these bones. There is an interesting story about what seems to be “an interesting” family, to put it mildly. But don’t do it as an almost three-hour film. This script should have never been too long of a movie; this should have been a five or six-episode miniseries. Yes, I can hear you saying how confused I am – earlier, I complained about this being too long, and now I am arguing it should have been longer. Well, yes and no.
Because traditionally, miniseries don’t have to be watched all at once. Sure, we all have gotten used to “binging” shows, but that does not mean we must do it. And something as intriguing and complex (what should have been much more complex than a bunch of Italian accents and one walking Mario stereotype) as this story should have been given “proper” treatment. The film feels long because it tries to compact a lot at once. But, had this script been given time where we could understand the complex relationships between Gaga’s and Driver’s characters more while focusing more on, you know, the Gucci stuff and less on “Imma Italian-a!” stereotypes, we could have had something here.
The film lost me in the second half, and I could not wait for it to be over; I was so done with the story I could not care less about what happened. I can (kind of) see what Ridley was trying to do, balancing the “Commedia dell’arte” style with drama, and I applaud him for trying. But I can’t in good conscience applaud the result.
Overall, House of Gucci is one of those films that proves that Ridley Scott is now, more than ever, hit or miss director. And even though you could argue this movie was a delightful disaster (and I have seen people who claim they genuinely enjoyed themselves), for me, it was just a disaster with a promising start and more than capable people in front of and behind the camera. Most importantly, this film didn’t understand the assignment because if it had, it would have been an epic miniseries with no accents (or radical idea incoming, Italian actors?!) and no Jared. Please, just no more Italian Jared.
That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!
Until next time,
Luke
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