SUCCESSIONE (HOUSE OF GUCCI)

Fashion is ridiculous.

Staging extravagant shows with stick thin models wearing designer clothes is nonsense - especially as most people will never get within a whiff of seeing those designs in real life, let alone wearing them.

Created by a small cabal of designers for the obscenely wealthy, most of the designs have little relevance to the majority of people.

And that is why Robert Altman got stuck into the industry in his savagely funny 1994 comedy 'Pret A Porter'.

Ridley Scott isn't the first person that comes to mind when you think of a director making a movie about the fashion industry or the Gucci empire.

However 'House of Gucci' is a pretty entertaining and flamboyant romp through the lives of the family who set up the company.

Lady Gaga plays Patrizia Reggiani, an attractive young woman who draws wolf whistles from the men employed in the truck company run by her father, Vincent Riotta's Fernando in Milan.

Patrizia is an office manager in the family firm and enjoys all the attention from Fernando's employees.

Attending a fancy dress party dressed as Elizabeth Taylor, she encounters Adam Driver's mild mannered Maurizio Gucci who has wandered behind the bar in a tuxedo.

Stunned to discover she has met a Gucci, she is smitten and before long hunts him down to the university where he is studying law, so she can engineer a date.

Maurizio is flattered by the attention she lavishes on him and soon they start dating, with him arranging a lunch so he can introduce Patrizia to his father, Jeremy Irons' Rodolfo Gucci, a former screen actor and designer who owns 50% of the famous fashion house.

Rodolfo is charming but takes an instinct dislike to Patrizia, later telling Maurizio that he can have a fling with her but should never marry her because her family works in an industry riddled with Mafia connections and she is a gold digger.

His remarks anger his son who insists he is deeply in love with Patrizia and estranged from Rodolfo, he turns up on the doorstep of the Reggiani family, telling Fernando and his wife, Alexia Muray's Silvana that he wishes to marry their daughter.

Facing the prospect of being cut off from his father's inheritance, Maurizio is employed in Fernando's company  washing trucks while he studies law and hits it off with the workers, playing football with them and attracting jeers when Patrizia summons him to the office to make love.

The couple get married in Milan's cathedral where the groom's family are conspicuous by their absence.

The wedding is covered, however, by the Italian press, catching the attention in New York of Maurizio's uncle, Al Pacino's Aldo who runs Gucci.

Aldo visits his brother in a bid to persuade him to reconcile with his son and organises a 70th birthday celebration in the old country which he hopes the reclusive Rodolfo and Maurizio will attend.

Inviting Maurizio, he persuades his nephew to attend following pestering by Patrizia.

However Rodolfo doesn't show.

Patrizia charms Aldo at the celebration who gives the couple a wedding gift of flights to New York via Concorde which Patrizia is keen to take up.

Maurizio, however, is reluctant to get drawn into the Gucci empire, insisting he has never been happier than he has working for the Reggianis and studying law.

However Patrizia and Aldo have other plans, with the latter treating him like a son.

Aldo is embarrassed by his real son, Jared Leto's buffoonish Paolo who fancies himself as a great designer but has little flair for it.

Noticing the close bond that his own father is developing with Maurizio, he tries to do likewise with Roldolfo by sharing his designs which mix browns with pastels.

Rodolfo appears to initially gently let him down by suggesting great designers hide their work and wait to be discovered.

However his impatience quickly gets the better of him and he insults his nephew by telling him he has no talent for design and that the one thing he and his brother Aldo agree is that Paolo is an idiot.

His ego badly bruised, Paolo vows to go it alone and urinates on a scarf designed by Rodolfo.

Patrizia and Aldo work hard to convince Maurizio to take up a position in the company and eventually he relents.

Aldo also manages to get an increasingly frail Rodolfo and Maurizio to reconcile after the birth of his brother's granddaughter but his brother dies soon afterwards.

Rodolfo's close aide and executor, Jack Huston's Domenico De Sole reveals that while Maurizio's father wrote him back into his will and left his 50% stake in the company to him, he forgot to sign the shares over - leaving his son potentially exposed to a massive inheritance tax liability.

Patrizia and Maurizio forge the signature and start to take control of the company.

However in doing so, they embark on a path that will ultimately lead to family betrayal, deception and ultimately, murder.

Working from a script by Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna based on Sara Gay Forden's book 'The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour and Greed,' Scott crafts a mostly entertaining tale.

Working again with Polish cinematographer Dariusz Wolski who previously collaborated with him on 'Prometheus', 'The Counselor,' 'Exodus: Gods and Kings,' 'The Martian', 'Alien Covenant', 'All the Money in the World' and 'The Last Duel,' 'House of Gucci' is an undoubtedly stylish affair that trades on high camp and soap opera dynamics.

The film mostly belongs, though, to Lady Gaga who, on the back of her Oscar nominated lead role in Bradley Cooper's 'A Star Is Born', delivers another barnstorming performance as Patrizia.

Resembling at times great Italian movie stars like Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida and Claudia Cardinale, she confirms she is a magnetic screen presence and, unlike Madonna, Sting or Justin Timberlake, she is a pop star who is a natural actor.

Gaga is every bit as comfortable holding court on a film set with actors of the calibre of Driver, Irons and Pacino as she is performing in arenas as a singer.

It is an electrifying performance, with Gaga skilfully handling Patrizia's descent into greed, corruption and betrayal.

Driver is a great foil for her and delivers another strong performance, drawing out Maurizio's similar story arc in a subtle way that befits a character who is more quietly calculating than his wife.

Pacino is a delight to watch as well, turning Aldo into a likeable old rogue, while Irons makes his presence count as his snobby, vain brother.

There's an amusing turn too from Salma Hayek who turns up as psychic called Pina who becomes a confidante to Patrizia, while Jack Huston is good value as the cunning Domenico De Sole.

Reeve Carney makes an impression as the Texan designer Tom Ford and Camille Cottin handles the part of Paola Franchi, an old acquaintance of Maurizio's well.

Youssef Kerkour does a solid job too as an Iraqi investor Nemir Kirdar and Vincenzo Tanassi and Mauro Lamanti are good value as two men who become embroiled in an assassination plot involving the Gucci family.

If there is a weak point, however, it is Jared Leto's over exaggerated performance as the Fredo of the Gucci family, Paolo.

At times, his stage Italian mannerisms veer into Joe Dolce 'Shaddap Ya Face' territory - although if there's ever a Gino D'Acampo biopic planned, Jared's your man.

From time to time, Scott and his screenwriters ladle out the Italian clichés a bit thick and while the film starts to run out of steam in the final act, it a brisk, mostly enjoyable affair that revels in its 1970s, 80s and 90s fashion and its soap opera antics.

'Succession' fans looking to top up their weekly dose will find 'House of Gucci' helps, with its story of characters plotting to control a business empire.

But while it doesn't quite scale the heights of HBO's wickedly funny show, 'House of Gucci' nevertheless amuses.

It also boasts a smart soundtrack featuring Donna Summer, George Michael, the Eurythmics, Blondie, David Bowie, Tracy Chapman and Luciano Pavarotti.

Is 'House of Gucci' in the top half of Scott's body of work?

Most definitely but it's fair to say it's not among his very best work.

It is, however, an amusing romp that is well worth a trip to the cinema, even for Lady Gaga's performance alone.

A star is confirmed.

('House of Gucci' opened in US cinemas on November 24, 2021 and UK and Irish cinemas on November 26,2021)

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