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Lady Gaga and Adam Driver are the only parts of Ridley Scott’s fashion drama to receive a virtual round of applause.

The rest of House of Gucci, especially the roles of Jared Leto and Al Pacino, didn’t get such warm acclaim.

All eyes have been on Gaga and Driver since those behind-the-scene shots of them in costume, which came out way before the equally tantalising trailer.

Written by Roberto Bentivegna and adapted from Sarah Gay Gorden’s book The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed, the film centres on the story of fashion mogul Maurizio Gucci’s (Driver) marriage to Patrizia Reggiani (Gaga).

The Guardian, giving House of Gucci a middling three-star review, recognised how Gaga “deserves a gong for steering a steely path through the madness”:

Variously known as “Lady Gucci” and “Black Widow”, Reggiani became the centre of a very 1990s scandal involving lust, money, fashion, murder… and a clairvoyant.

To that tabloid-friendly cocktail, Ridley Scott’s latest “true story” potboiler adds a dash of pop superstardom, with Lady Gaga (Oscar- nominated for her close-to-home performance in A Star Is Born) relishing the chance to find the human cracks beneath a larger-than-life, femme fatale surface.

While Driver is described as “cinema’s sexy nerd de nos jours“, Leto’s performance hasn’t fared well at all:

As [Uncle] Aldo’s idiot son Paolo [Gucci], Leto appears to be starring in his own private awards audition tape. Having walked the full length of the hair and makeup counter, he arrives on screen resembling Andy Kaufman’s absurdist alter ego Tony Clifton, a prosthetic symphony of silly suits and protruding guts.

Jared Leto. Image: MGM/ Universal

As for his voice, while others adopt faintly ridiculous Italian inflections, Leto delivers his lines in a string of high-pitched whoops that suggest he is attempting to communicate with whales.

It’s also bad news for Pacino:

Only Pacino comes close to matching Leto’s parodic screen presence; later scenes pairing the two in states of tragic disarray look like outtakes from an Italian remake of Little Britain.

Shame.

Although, the film does a “solid job of evoking its recent-history milieu” with perfect fashion and music like a “cheesy jukebox treat”.

While some might be disappointed by House of Gucci, the kitschiness and classiness of the high fashion world seem to collide in a way that makes the film fascinating enough.

[source:guardian]