House of Gucci Explained: What's Up With the Ending?

Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) is the heir to one of the two owners of the famous House of Gucci, Rodolfo Gucci (Jeremy Irons). Rodolfo is very ill, and he hopes that his son will take over the management of the family business, but Maurizio is a rather timid, awkward and shy person, and he is frightened by the need to take on the management of the Italian branch of Gucci: he is engaged in law and this fascinates him much more than handbags or moccasins with iron inserts.

Patricia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) is a young Italian from a rather modest family who works in the office of a small trucking company owned by her father. Patricia does not have a good education, she is somewhat vulgar, but she is very assertive and knows well what she wants to achieve in this life.

Once, at a party, Patricia meets Maurizio, whom she first mistook for a bartender. Maurizio called her “Elizabeth Taylor”, and the girl realized that the boy, as they say, swam. And since Signorita Reggiani quickly found out who this Maurizio was and what money was behind him, it was not difficult for her to play the subsequent “random meeting” with Gucci, and Patricia also quickly demonstrated to the boy the strength and power of her Italian temperament right on the table in the office firms, after which Maurizio realized that he had fallen in love like a youngster, and he was also ready to get married “right away”, without leaving the office desk, so that these sweet seconds would repeat again and again.

Tellingly, Dad Rodolfo, who sees through Patricia and understands what she needs, categorically disapproves of his son’s intention to marry. Why should you marry, he asks? Give her diamonds, take her to Sardinia, have sex at least five times a day, but get married?! Yes, you’re crazy!!!

However, Maurizio, blinded by passion, nevertheless marries Patricia, despite his father’s threats to deprive him of his inheritance. With his beloved, selflessly says Maurizio Patricia, paradise and in a hut. However, the most beloved paradise, of course, is needed, but not in a hut, but in luxurious interiors, so she will not leave these Gucci alone so easily.

Fortunately, the second owner of the House of Gucci, Rodolfo’s brother Aldo Gucci (Al Pacino), who runs the American branch of the company, treats his nephew and his wife very favorably: Aldo considers his own son Paolo (Jared Leto) a good-for-nothing idiot , so all the hopes of the family are Maurizio. And Maurizio is under the strong influence of Patricia, who is slowly taking over many of the threads of managing this family company.

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The idea to make a film about this infamous family, whose members were so fond of following the yellow press, was nurtured by Ridley Scott for a very long time, about fifteen years. The director became interested in the history of the Gucci family after reading Sarah Gay Forden’s acclaimed book The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed.

In 2006, the development of the project started: the roles of Maurizio Gucci and Patricia Reggiani were to be played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Angelina Jolie. The script, based on the book by Sarah Gay Forden, was written by Andrea Berloff. However, the project stalled due to objections from Gucci’s heirs and threats of lawsuits.

But the project continued to be developed: at some point, the director of the film was Ridley Scott’s daughter Jordan, who saw Penelope Cruz as Patricia. In 2016, Wong Kar Wai became the director, and Margot Robbie was planned for the role of Reggiani. Well, at the end of 2019, Ridley Scott again became the director, and the script was written by a certain Roberto Bentivegna, in whose luggage are the scripts for three unknown films, which the same Bentivegna himself directed.

But we know with what delightful casualness Ridley Scott can relate to the scripts of his films: just remember the completely idiotic film “Robin Hood” with Russell Crowe, on the script of which my pocket debilometer went off scale, which, no doubt, was perfectly calibrated.

The shooting of the film began in February 2021 in Rome, and moviegoers were delighted on the Web with leaked photos of a completely unrecognizable Jared Leto in makeup, who played the role of Paulo, Lady Gaga in the image of Patricia and Adam Driver in frilly glasses, portraying Maurizio. It all looked very expensive, very rich, and the audience hoped that old Scott would hit this family in his usual uncompromising manner.

The picture was released at the end of November 2021, while another film by this director, The Last Duel, was released in September of the same year, and at the box office the picture failed with a completely wild crash, collecting only $ 30 million around the world with a budget of $ 100 million than the director was very annoyed. (And one can easily imagine how annoyed the studio that invested the money was.)

With the film “House of Gucci”, interest in which was noticeably fueled by a shade of scandal, the situation was not so catastrophic, however, with a budget of $ 75 million in the USA, the film collected only $ 53 million, and in the world it gave only $ 152 million, but it’s not a complete failure. : Over time, the studio will most likely be able to return their investment, but it is clear that they will not earn anything from this film.

The definition of the genre of this picture includes the words “biography”, “drama”, “crime”, “thriller”. So why did you, you ask, put the word “comedy” as the genre of the film?

Yes, because it’s a comedy. Moreover, this is not even just a comedy, but, using a buzzword, camp comedy – the camp style is characterized by increased theatricality, mannerisms, strong exaggeration, reaching vulgarity. If you want to understand what camp is, remember Liberace and his performances. This is the real camp!

But what is not in this film is biographies, drama, crime, and even more so a thriller. There is no biography – because the director is extremely free with the real history of this family, and it’s not even that he transferred Maurizio’s acquaintance with Patricia from 1970 to eight years later, but that the family, shaken by passions, lost several important participants in the struggle for the right to sell bags, moccasins and clothes of this brand, because Uncle Aldo had three children, not one. In addition, the director is not too worried about at least some correspondence of some of the characters in his film to real prototypes, and from Paolo, who, for a moment, since the late sixties was the chief designer of the company and vice president (since the late seventies) of the Gucci house, he made absolutely the most ridiculous clown, similar to the Penguin from “Batman”.

There is no drama here – because we are not being shown any drama. Well, two Italian jerks are responsible for the crime here, who are hired by Patricia through her friend, fortune teller and type as a psychic Giuseppina Auriemme (Salma Hayek), and this is one of the most stupid scenes in the film, and believe me – there are enough stupid scenes in the picture.

Plus, Ridley Scott forced the main participants in the action to speak with an absolutely caricatured Italian accent throughout the film (I generally keep quiet about clothes – there is one moronic tracksuit Paolo is worth something), and this finally formed the genre of this picture, which, as we found out, is neither a biography nor a drama, not a crime, let alone a thriller, but it’s just some kind of stupid, very bright, colorful and pompous vaudeville, completely mediocrely staged, in which very good actors do not understand at all what they are depicting at all, and most importantly – why!

The choice of Lady Gaga for the role of Patricia is a completely win-win option, especially if the director was different and if he put on a drama, and not this madhouse. We have known since A Star Is Born that she is a pretty strong actress who can play a bright and distinctive character. Here Lady Gaga plays perfectly, but it is the manner of staging that turns her heroine into some kind of outright farce.

Moreover, we still do not understand how Ridley Scott himself treats Patricia. Does he consider her just a hunter for the money of the richest family, how does he assess her role in the development of the company itself (the real Patricia still claims that she is more Gucci than all the current Gucci put together), does he understand the motives that led Patricia to order the murder of her husband – but no, this is not shown in the film in any way, the character of this most interesting person is rather blurred, and only Lady Gaga’s talent creates something more from this than the director even laid there.

Adam Driver in Ridley Scott played one of the main roles in “The Last Duel”, where his image was quite clearly defined and played, and here we are shown a quiet, modest and shy person who is not at all going to manage the family business: him, tyutyu tyutey, the assertive lady from the bottom was enraged, who, as a result, from a spineless slug blinded a tough and unprincipled manager.

Nothing in the demonstrated character of Maurizio at the beginning of the film indicated who he would become later, and the real biography of this person shows that the character shown at the very beginning is a figment of the imagination of Ridley Scott himself, because this, of course, was exactly the real heir family empire – with all the consequences.

However, Adam Driver acts in the circumstances offered to him by the director, and since he is a very strong and multifaceted actor, the image of the cinematic Maurizio turned out to be at least interesting and least vaudeville of all.

Jeremy Irons is lucky in this picture. His Rodolfo is very sick and weak, he clearly sees Patricia as a money hunter for a wealthy family, but there is little he can do anymore, and Jeremy coped with his role as a dying lion clinging to his past.

But Al Pacino was not so lucky. Aldo is still full of energy, and he plays an important role in what is happening, so this absolutely wonderful – no fools – actor had to portray several full-fledged figures of this completely bad Marlezon ballet, and it was simply unbearable to look at: Al Pacino reminded here of Big Boy Caprice from greatly underestimated film (one of the very first comic book films) “Dick Tracy”, but Big Boy Caprice was a character in a film comic book, and here it seems like we were promised a biography, drama, crime and almost a thriller, but they showed us what.

Well, let’s drop the veil of pity on the character of Salma Hayek, who played this fortune-teller-clairvoyant-psychic and life coach Giuseppina Auriemme, and this role was the most caricatured and completely ridiculous.

I’m generally silent about Paolo Jared Leto, it’s just some kind of “hand-face”: there are no censorship words when looking at what Ridley Scott created from this very real, let me remind you, character, at all – this is not even vaudeville, it’s just some kind of bad anecdote, which, however, quite normally fits into the style of the madhouse that is happening on the screen, because it is difficult to worsen something beyond what has already been done.

In general, to be honest, I am in complete shock after watching this movie. However, after “Robin Hood” it was already possible to understand what kind of madhouse with squeals and coups the maestro is capable of, but after quite a decent “The Last Duel”, which I liked, watch this ridiculous farce for $ 100 million with excellent actors who will the stage director is simply grimacing in the most miserable way – it was clearly beyond my strength.

At the same time, I note that there are many spectators and critics who liked this production and they find some kind words for it. Well, that means they saw something in her that I didn’t. But I always express my own opinion, and here I see a very long, mediocrely staged and really badly played farce in very rich and pretentious interiors. It’s just amazing, gentlemen, honestly!