Rodolfo might argue that “quality is remembered long after price is forgotten,” but his unscrupulous brother Aldo insists that being rich is the only quality that matters (he’s played by Al Pacino, who goes big in a movie where XXL fits like a medium). For the rest of the family, Gucci is a fortune, and globalism offers the promise of making it bigger. It’s something that mere mortals should only be able to wear in their dreams (Rodolfo’s motto: “No malls”). The ailing likes to live in the past - not the past as it was, but the past as it lives in his imagination.įor him, Gucci is something that should only be worn by the likes of Grace Kelly.
Maurizio’s widowed father Rodolfo (a recessively scabrous Jeremy Irons in full Miss Havisham mode) is quick to look down on his son’s new crush, willfully ignoring the fact that his late actress wife was the daughter of a chemical plant worker, or that only one generation has passed since the so-called Gucci empire sprang out of a hotel worker’s head. Of course, her new relatives never let her forget either of those facts. It helps that she inhabits Patrizia as an outsider several times over: First as a Reggiani in the Gucci family, then as a woman in the fashion world. 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. 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. Like so many of the people in it, “House of Gucci” is determined to be serious in the face of farcical ambition. Or is it the other way around? Some movie-goers may be disappointed to find that Scott’s film isn’t quite the unapologetic romp that its trailers promised that it’s less fun than it is fascinating, despite the arena-sized bigness of Lady Gaga’s lead performance and Jared Leto’s very welcome decision to play Maurizio’s failson cousin like a commedia dell’arte cross between Fredo Corleone and Waluigi (no last name given). It’s a moment of pure exaggeration shot with the poker-faced reserve of a director whose steeliness has bent any number of genres to his will over the years, and it sets the stage for a gaudy corporate satire that’s dressed in the seriousness of a crime epic. 'The Unforgivable' Review: Sandra Bullock Plays a Haunted Ex-Con in a Messy Netflix Crime Drama
New Movies: Release Calendar for November 24, Plus Where to Watch the Latest Films You can almost see the cash registers go “ka-ching!” in her eyeballs when Maurizio Gucci ( Adam Driver) introduces himself to her at a party one fateful night in the 1970s, as that famous last name hits Patrizia like a whiff of cartoon cheese and sparks a chemical reaction that will eventually ruin them both. The Patrizia at the heart of this frothy tragicomic fable is Jordan Belfort, Daniel Plainview, and No-Face from “Spirited Away” all dolled up like Elizabeth Taylor and rolled into a checkered $5,000 pantsuit that looks like the smell of leather. And while the actress who so vividly embodies her in Ridley Scott’s “ House of Gucci” might insist that Reggiani married the reluctant heir to Milan’s greatest fashion empire for love and not the greed that she later grew into, everything we see on screen suggests that some Machiavellian bloodsuckers are just born that way (perhaps a pinch of self-delusion is necessary for Gaga’s bone-deep commitment to the bit). Patrizia Reggiani - or at least the Mad Magazine caricature of her that Lady Gaga carves from the tabloids with Michelangelo-like artistry and precision - is one of modern cinema’s most voracious money monsters.