House of Gucci

Development

In June 2006, Ridley Scott was set to direct a film for Paramount Pictures about the downfall of the Gucci family dynasty, with Andrea Berloff writing the script,[4] despite the family's dismissal of the project,[5] with Angelina Jolie and Leonardo DiCaprio rumored to play Patrizia Reggiani and Maurizio Gucci.[6] In February 2012, Scott's daughter Jordan Scott had replaced him as director and was in talks with Penélope Cruz to play Reggiani.[7] In November 2016, Wong Kar-wai took over as director from Jordan Scott, with Charles Randolph writing alongside Berloff, and Margot Robbie now considered to play Reggiani.[8] In November 2019, Ridley Scott was again set to direct the film, with Roberto Bentivegna writing the script, and Lady Gaga set to star.[9] According to the Gucci CEO, Marco Bizzarri, the fashion house cooperated with the production and gave them full access to their archives for wardrobe and props.[10]

Gaga explained that she took into account how her longtime friend Tony Bennett "feels about Italians being represented in film in terms of crime", and aspired to "make a real person out of Patrizia, not a caricature".[11] To achieve that, she studied Reggiani's vocal cadence and attitude. She explained, "I felt the best way to honor Maurizio and Italians was for my performance to be authentic, from the perspective of a woman. Not an Italian-American woman, but an Italian woman."[11] She stayed in character for 18 months, speaking with an accent for nine months during that period. She also ad-libbed many of her lines, including the film's iconic quote, "Father, son and House of Gucci", which went viral after the release of the film's first trailer.[12][13]

Casting

In November 2019, it was announced that Gaga would play Reggiani. In April 2020, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired the rights to the film.[14] By August, Adam Driver, Jared Leto, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Jack Huston and Reeve Carney had entered negotiations to join the cast.[15] Driver, Leto, Pacino and De Niro were confirmed by October.[16] Huston and Carney were confirmed in December, along with Jeremy Irons, while De Niro had exited the film.[17][18] Dariusz Wolski announced his involvement as cinematographer that same month.[19] Camille Cottin joined the cast in January 2021.[20] In March, Mădălina Diana Ghenea, Mehdi Nebbou and Miloud Mourad Benamara were added to the cast,[21][22] along with Salma Hayek, who was married to the CEO of Gucci's parent company, François-Henri Pinault.[23]

Filming

In August 2020, it was reported that filming was expected to begin when Scott completed production of The Last Duel (2021).[14] On February 3, 2021, Leto said that the film was still in the pre-production phase, and that they would start shooting in Italy in the coming weeks.[24] Principal photography began in Rome at the end of February, with COVID-19 safety precautions in place.[25][26][27]

Several scenes were filmed in early March in the cities of Gressoney-Saint-Jean and Gressoney-La-Trinité, specifically in the Italian Alps in the Aosta Valley, which were used to create the tourist complex of St. Moritz in Switzerland.[28] Filming also took place in other locations, such as Florence, Lake Como (at Villa del Balbiano) and Milan,[29] including the Villa Necchi Campiglio (previously featured in the film I Am Love). At the end of March, filming returned to Rome to shoot scenes at Via Condotti.[30] Filming wrapped on May 8.[31]

Music

Box office

House of Gucci grossed $53.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $99.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $153.2 million.[3][37]

In the United States and Canada, House of Gucci was released alongside Encanto and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, and was originally projected to gross $15-to-20 million from 3,441 theaters in its five-day opening weekend.[38]

The film opened nationwide on Wednesday, November 24, 2021, and made $4.2 million on its first day—including $1.3 million from Tuesday night previews—from a total of 345,000 theater admissions. House of Gucci went on to debut to a $22 million five-day opening.[39]

The main reasons given for seeing the film were Lady Gaga (40%), the ensemble cast (32%) and the plot (34%).[40] 45% of audiences were between the ages of 18 and 34, and 34% over the age of 45, a higher-than-average result for a drama film targeting an older audience during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Deadline Hollywood, House of Gucci had the best box-office opening for a drama film since Little Women in 2019,[41][42] and Forbes predicted that the film would become "by far, the most 'successful' adult-skewing non-action drama of the so-called pandemic era".[43]

The film made $7 million in its second weekend,[44][45] $4.1 million in its third,[46][47] $1.99 million in its fourth,[48][49] and $915,339 in its fifth.[50][51] In its seventh weekend, the film crossed the $50 million mark in the U.S. and Canada, while also finishing tenth at the box office with $616,744.[52][53]

Outside the U.S. and Canada, the film earned $12.8 million from 40 markets in its opening weekend; the top countries in its first five days were the U.K. ($3.4 million), France ($1.9 million), Mexico ($975,000), Spain ($795,000), and the Netherlands ($629,000).[54] The film went on to make $14.8 million in its second weekend and $10.1 million in its third.[55][56] In its fourth weekend, House of Gucci grossed $4.1 million and crossed the $100 million mark worldwide.[57] The film earned $3.16 million in its sixth weekend,[58] $4 million in its seventh,[59] $4.4 million in its eighth,[60] and $2.8 million in its ninth.[61]

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, of critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of. The website's consensus reads: "House of Gucci vacillates between inspired camp and dour drama too often to pull off a confident runway strut, but Lady Gaga's note-perfect performance has a timeless style all its own."[62] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 59 out of 100 based on 59 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[63] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on a scale of A+ to F, while those at PostTrak gave it an 82% positive score, with 60% saying that they would recommend it.

Deadline Hollywood noted a strong divide between critics and audiences, and said, "It appears moviegoers are overpowering."[40]

Screen Rant commented that although the film received mixed reviews from critics, the performances of the cast were highly praised, with particular emphasis on Lady Gaga, Al Pacino, and Jared Leto.[64]

Alissa Wilkinson of Vox gave the film a mixed review, praising the performances but criticizing the screenplay and writing. "The movie the trailer is selling is actually a little more dishy and wild than the real House of Gucci, which would be a pointless and somewhat perfunctory dud if it weren't for the brilliance, or madness, of the performances."[65]

Reviewing the film for The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney wrote, "Ridley Scott's film is a trashtacular watch that I wouldn't have missed for the world. But it fails to settle on a consistent tone — overlong and undisciplined as it careens between high drama and opera buffa."[66]

Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four, writing, "Adam Driver (who has now played a French squire and an Italian fashion heir in consecutive Ridley Scott movies) and Lady Gaga have legit chemistry together, and it's still a kick to see Al Pacino roaring like a lion in winter. But Hayek and Irons are playing cardboard-thin characters, Leto flounders about as if he's in a movie all his own, and House of Gucci feels coldly calculating when it should have been flush and warm with scandalous sensationalism."[67]

Writing for The New York Times, A. O. Scott found the film to be a missed opportunity that could have been crafted more in line with better cinematic standards, stating that it lacks "the necessary vision or inspiration".[68]

Gaga's Italian accent was met with criticism by Italian actress and dialect coach Francesca De Martini, who worked on the set as a dialogue coach for Hayek, and claimed that Gaga's "accent is not exactly an Italian accent, it sounds more Russian".[69]

BBC stated that Leto's portrayal of Paolo Gucci inspired "both ridicule and irritation".[70] Film critic Mark Kermode described his performance as "parodic", writing that "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".[71]

David Ehrlich of IndieWire described Leto as "brilliantly over-the-top".[72]

Responding to negative reviews characterizing the cast's performances as "high-flown and jarringly incongruous", Michael Shindler of The American Conservative wrote that such comments overlook those performances' relation to the film's "dramatic substance", "a conflict of high-flown and jarringly incongruous personalities vying to remake Gucci in their own image", arguing that the film, like Scott's All the Money in the World, is a historical drama about the emergence of "a new man whose very character is adapted to the demands of contemporary commerce", comparing J. Paul Getty's role in the latter to that of Tom Ford.[73]

Response from involved parties

In January 2021, during an interview with Italian magazine Novella 2000, the murderer Patrizia Reggiani approved that Gaga would portray her and commented that she "immensely" likes her, saying, "she's a genius".[74] However, in March, Reggiani gave an interview to the Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA), in which she stated that she was "annoyed" that Gaga had not contacted her to meet her, and claimed that "it is not an economic question. I won't get a cent from the film. It is a question of good sense and respect."[75]

Later that month, it was confirmed that the producers did not want Gaga to meet her, and that they were "aware of not wanting to endorse or support the awful crime" that she committed, saying that Gaga had watched much footage and many documentaries, and read books about her life.[76] Gaga also stated that she has no interest in "colluding" with Reggiani, but that her heart goes "out to her daughters... I do care deeply that this must be very painful for them".[77]

Patrizia Gucci, who is Paolo Gucci's daughter and Maurizio Gucci's first cousin once removed, told the Associated Press, in the name of the Gucci family, that they were "truly disappointed" by the film. "They are stealing the identity of a family to make a profit, to increase the income of the Hollywood system." She added, "Our family has an identity, privacy. We can talk about everything, but there is a borderline that cannot be crossed."

According to Gucci, the three central concerns of the family are inaccuracies in the film, the lack of contact with Ridley Scott, and the casting of high-profile actors to play people who were not connected with the murder. She also said that the Gucci family will decide what their next course of action will be after watching the completed film.[78] Scott rejected her claims, saying, "You have to remember that one Gucci was murdered and another went to jail for tax evasion so you can't be talking to me about making a profit. As soon as you do that you become part of the public domain."[79]

Tom Ford, in an article for Air Mail, stated that he "felt as though [he] had lived through a hurricane when [he] left the theater", saying that, despite laughing on a few occasions, he found it "hard for [him] to see the humor and camp in something that was so bloody. In real life, none of it was camp. It was at times absurd, but ultimately it was tragic."

Ford praised most of the cast, although he did criticize Pacino's and Leto's performances, comparing them to Saturday Night Live performers, and adding on the latter, "Leto's brilliance as an actor is literally buried under latex prosthetics. Paolo, whom I met on several occasions, was indeed eccentric and did some wacky things, but his overall demeanor was certainly not like the crazed and seemingly mentally challenged character of Leto's performance." While not directly commenting on his role in the film nor Reeve Carney's portrayal of him, Ford noted that the moment of Maurizio's toasting of him was inaccurate, as he had already been bought out by the company before Ford became Gucci's creative director.[80][81]

Accolades