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Lady Gaga brings down the ‘House of Gucci’
By Justin Chang
Los Angeles Times
M
onarchies may fall and
empires may crumble,
but for the moment, epic fam-
ily dynasties still reign with a
vengeance on the screen. Now
along comes “House of Gu-
cci,” Ridley Scott’s canny and
engrossing movie about an
Italian luxury brand and a family
brought low by greed, fraud and
vicious infi ghting, plus a notori-
ous black widow played by a
coldly electrifying Lady Gaga.
We get a taste of that bit-
ter end at the beginning. The
movie opens on March 27, 1995,
mere minutes before Maurizio
Gucci (Adam Driver), the fashion
house’s former head, is gunned
down in Milan by an assassin
hired by his vengeful ex-wife, Pa-
trizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga). Scott
cuts away before the killing oc-
curs, in a way that can’t help but
echo the violence-anticipating
prologue of “The Last Duel,” his
recent movie about the travails
of a 14th-century Frenchwoman.
Courtesy of Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Inc.
Lady Gaga in “House of Gucci.”
Here, hundreds of years later, is
another moment of calm before
the storm and also another story
of a woman caught up in an over-
bearingly male world of power
and intrigue.
One crucial diff erence is that
while the heroine of “The Last
Duel” is sold into a bad marriage,
Patrizia wills herself into one.
She’s at a party in Milan in 1970,
giving off Elizabeth Taylor vibes
in a head-turning red dress,
when she fi rst meets the dif-
fi dent, bespectacled Maurizio,
who’s so awkward — but charm-
ingly so — that it takes her a
beat to realize he’s the heir to the
famous Gucci fashion house. A
reluctant heir, admittedly, who
plans to practice law, shows little
interest in the family business
and is entirely naive about why
Patrizia might have him locked
in her sights. They soon marry,
defying Maurizio’s father, Ro-
dolfo Gucci (an elegant, exacting
Jeremy Irons), who takes one
look at his future daughter-in-law
and guesses what she’s after.
It’s hard to see how anyone
couldn’t guess, since Patrizia’s
darkly glittering eyes, which stop
just short of burning holes in the
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screen, so nakedly telegraph her
every desire. As in her previous
unhappily ever after Cinderella
story, “A Star Is Born,” Lady Gaga
temporarily dons a working-
class shell, downplaying her
natural magnetism in order to
maximize it. Before long, Patrizia
stands revealed for what she is:
an avatar of ambition and, like
Gaga herself, born to wear the
silver-sequined evening gowns
and furry après-ski ensembles
dreamed up for her by costume
designer Janty Yates. More than
anything, Patrizia is a woman
of insatiable hunger: She looks
ahead to the day that his millions
— and his powerful place within
the competitive Gucci family
hierarchy — will be hers as well.
The bonds of family are ex-
tended fi rst by Rodolfo’s brother
and business partner, Aldo
Gucci (a boisterous, aff ectionate
Al Pacino), who welcomes his
new niece with open arms. He’s
the company’s entrepreneurial
genius, the one who continued
his father Guccio’s mission to
transform a Florentine family-run
business into a global brand.
Maurizio and Patrizia soon
relocate to New York (and have
a young daughter, Alessandra)
to work in Gucci’s Manhattan
stores. And before long, Ro-
dolfo is dead, leaving his half of
the company (in a roundabout
fashion) to Maurizio and setting
a furious round of power plays
in motion. There are stormy
confrontations and hostile
takeovers, forged signatures and
prison sentences, grim fi nancial
assessments and odd psychic
readings (the latter delivered by
Patrizia’s friend and future ac-
complice, Pina Auriemma, played
by a very game Salma Hayek).
Patrizia takes a keen pride in
the business — the market for
cheap Gucci knockoff s infuriates
her — and, like a chain-smoking,
mud-bathing Lady Macbeth,
spurs her husband toward
increasing acts of ruthlessness
against his own family.
Were any of these characters
really this awful or this riveting?
Did any of it actually happen
this way? Possibly. More or less.
Of course not. As in any slick
bio-fi ction, characters have
been excised, timelines fudged,
perspectives distorted. And yet,
even amid the inevitable simplifi -
cations and exaggerations, it all
coheres, with a kind of implaca-
bly grim logic, into an extended
cautionary tale about how family
and business shouldn’t mix.
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