House of Gucci is Shockingly Fabulous and Humanly Ugly at Once.

First, let’s get the obvious out of the way. I don’t write the film summaries well and prefer to use pull quotes so here is the summary from IMDB:

When Patrizia Reggiani, an outsider from humble beginnings, marries into the Gucci family, her unbridled ambition begins to unravel their legacy and triggers a reckless spiral of betrayal, decadence, revenge, and ultimately...murder.

Yes. House of Gucci was a bit of a shocker because I had no idea that this brand was riddled with so much family and personal controversy. In fact, I had no idea Gucci was a family name! So much to learn about in such a short 2 hour span. Fascinating!

While I can go on and on about this film, here are 3 major points I feel are significant.

The acting was on point! Lady Gaga was hands down amazing and truly embodied the character so well I didn’t remember or recognize her as a singer or pop star. Since everyone essentially knows that Lady Gaga is fully capable of singing and performing on stage, I actually feel it works against her in taking on characters. But she convinced me of her acting skills in A Star is Born and she is even stronger as Patrizia Reggiani in House of Gucci. Patrizia’s personality is so strong that one gets a sense that Maurizio Gucci adopted parts of her personality to thrive within his family. This is apparent towards the end of the film when Maurizio thought he saw Patrizia at the Gucci Tom Ford show and consequently when he was failing to run Gucci as a business. A common saying that behind every successful man is strong woman, except this strong woman truly pushed Maurizio to the limelight. Her obsession with success unfortunately became toxic and lead to … the unfortunate ending.

Narrative Structure was a Based-On-A-True Story yet was filled with juicy moral content namely do not envy the rich! They got problems. One of the things that irritates me about film reviews is the reviewer tends to shred the film using personal judgement rather than explaining anything about the story’s failed structure or lack of juice. Juice = satisfying content that nourishes the viewer. Human beings are satisfied by stories that give them peace and comfort on how to live in this crazy world. With this House of Gucci story, while it is not a typical hero’s journey or a bland and instructive documentary, it relays the important information of putting the real relationships and relationship building first and shows the real harm of putting money before family. While Patrizia is guilty of being a gold digger, eventually the arc or all the characters shows their flawed affection for the cash flow rather than with each other.

Brand and Family Name are interesting factors to consider. One of the underlying themes in House of Gucci is the family as a brand. This does not always have to be a product brand. I believe this happens often in politics when the family is often in the public eye. With the Gucci brand, the family legacy is married to the quality of the products and as you can see the way Paolo Gucci was blocked from designing for the brand showed a callous snobbery intended on keeping the family’s image in the forefront and the family harmony on the back burner. There is nothing that would have really blocked Paolo from designing a piece here and there and giving to him an acknowledgement that he was valued. But again and again the family ripped him apart for not being born a genius. A born genius is a fictional ideal (especially other artists who might be reading this) but it is especially cruel the way it is delivered to Paolo.

Overall House of Gucci was an excellent film that left me thinking of deeper themes and piecing together ideas and words hours after the film was over. I will certainly never look at the Gucci brand the same way. And I have a feeling that Paolo’s work is going to be revived somehow.

Beautiful. Ugly. Engaging. Challenging. Disenchanting — All at once.

Disclaimer: Written by Marcie McCabe in a very untimely manner because she does not have access to films before they release and currently is not paid to write film reviews.