SPOILERS AHEAD

Ridley Scott’s satirical melodrama House of Gucci (headlined by Lady Gaga) is finally available to stream, and at $19.99, my wife and I didn’t mind paying the hefty fee as to have seen it in theaters would’ve cost far more. You’re paying for the brand name, after all, but a little discount doesn’t hurt.

The film is overlong and the first half plods awkwardly before finally getting to the good stuff in the second half. But, man oh man, is that good stuff in the second half indulgent…and we found ourselves, like Paulo Gucci (an unrecognizable Jared Leto), feeling like we just ate a gallon of chocolate gelato while thinking very dark thoughts.

Oh, the earthly delights to be had while watching…

• The over-the-top Italian accents make the film…and make it, as I’m sure Ridley Scott fully intended, a comedy – his best comedy since Hannibal. I almost wanted to turn on the closed captions, but that would’ve taken away the fun of not knowing what the hell they were saying half the time.
• The way Lady Gaga pronounces the word “focus” with that Italian accent when she says, “Don’t fah-kiss on the prah-cess, fah-kiss on the results!” might be the greatest thing ever. Her performance alone is worth the $19.99 and then some, but then there’s also…
• Jared Leto, in full-on over-the-top character-actor mode, a total riot as the whiny, incompetent Paulo Gucci, but then there’s also…
• Al Pacino as Al Pacino playing Aldo Gucci, delivering yet another performance that is both a blasphemous caricature and miraculously understated. Pure Pacino, but then there’s also…
• Salma Hayek as a Miss Cleo style dial-a-psychic…you know, the kind you can become BFF’s and plan fun spa days with while also leveraging them to plot a murder-for-hire scheme to take out your ex, but then there’s also…
• Adam Driver, loathsome and smug and smiling, as that ex getting his due and shot to death in the film’s climax. Oh, the pure joy of it!
• And don’t even get me started on the locales…Milan…New York…St. Moritz. Villas and penthouses and resorts. And the clothes!

If you told me the film cost $500 million dollars to make, I would believe you.

But oh, how cheap we feel afterwards.

Review by D. H. Schleicher