Big-city residents will be able to catch the first commercial showings of House of Gucci tomorrow night; the moderately satisfying Ridley Scott film will open everywhere on Wednesday, 11.24 — one day before Thanksgiving.
For those who missed or didn’t bother to read my 185-word review, posted on 11.10.21:
Ridley Scott‘s House of Gucci (UA Releasing, 11.24) is a cool, muted, decently made docudrama about how the Gucci family business gradually went downhill in the ’80s and ’90s, and how the 1995 murder of Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) by killers hired by Maurizo’s ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga), seemed to signify this decline.
The problem for me was one of expectation. Goaded by the trailers and that Patrizia Reggiani-slash-Lady Gaga money quote — “I don’t consider myself to be a particularly ethical person, but I am fair” — I was expecting Gaga to deliver a ruthless, high-camp, carniverous dragonlady — a new version of Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest.
Alas, despite what Team Variety and the fawning Twitter whores are saying, that’s not what this movie is. It’s not out to make Reggiani some kind of fang-toothed pit viper. It’s actually about trying to portray her in a half-sympathetic light. And so House of Gucci is basically about how an admittedly ambitious woman reacts when she’s scorned and bruised and cast aside.