Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci,” starring Adam Driver and Lady Gaga, may have made a sizable splash at the box office this weekend ($21.8 million for the five-day weekend). Still, not everyone loves its gaudy campiness. Centering on the real-life events of the murder of Maurizio Gucci ordered by his wife, Patrizia Reggiani, one such critic is Tom Ford, a filmmaker (“Nocturnal Animals”) and a legendary fashion designer. Ford was once the Creative Director at Gucci, knew many of the people portrayed in the new film, and is even portrayed in the movie by actor Reeve Carney.
Ford seemingly had so many issues with the film, which he says he “survived,” he penned a personal essay on the Air Mail (via THR), though to be fair, also praised the performances of Driver and Gaga alongside the film’s “impeccable costumes, stunning sets, and beautiful cinematography.”
Ford pointed out his issues with the camp and potentially unintentional humor, “The movie rivals the nighttime soap ‘Dynasty’ for subtlety but does so with a much bigger budget…I felt as though I had lived through a hurricane when I left the theater. Was it a farce or a gripping tale of greed? I often laughed out loud, but was I supposed to?… At times when Al Pacino as Aldo Gucci and Jared Leto as his son Paolo Gucci were on screen, I was not completely sure that I wasn’t watching a ‘Saturday Night Live’ version of the tale.”
“I was deeply sad for several days after watching ‘House of Gucci,” he continued in the essay, “A reaction that I think only those of us who knew the players and the play will feel. It was hard for me 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 took some issue with Leto’s performance, too, wearing a fat suit, prosthetics and really hamming it up throughout the movie.
“Both performers are given license to be absolute hams—and not of the prosciutto variety. They must have had fun. 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.”
Ford suggested he was too close to the material, noted his “opinion is perhaps biased” and said he “knew many of the other players in this saga” and was interviewed on multiple occasions for the book that was the source material for the film, “so it is hard for me to divorce reality from the glossy, heavily lacquered soap opera that I witnessed on screen.”
Turning actual events, notably murders, into entertainment will always see knee-jerk reactions from folks that lived them and knew the major players involved. But are Tom Ford’s gripes that off base? Intentionally or unintentionally, trying to turn a real tragedy into something more comedic with wacky performances might be a bit tasteless; however, it’s not that uncommon in Hollywood. Perhaps, if Ford directed the pic, he would have taken things a little more seriously, but then again, it’s not like “Nocturnal Animals” doesn’t feature gruesome elements with a lot of camp and broad sensibilities.