The trailer for House of Gucci dropped late last week, which means I have had DAYS to live in this trailer and just VIBE IT. We saw the set photos earlier this year, and the trailer is NOT disappointing the expectations raised from those photos. This movie LOOKS amazing. Slick, polished, stylish—no less than we would expect from a master like Ridley Scott. I am getting strong All the Money in the World vibes, which was Scott’s last foray into true crime. He’s always been interested in crime dramas (Thelma & Louise and American Gangster, to name just two examples), but recently that interest has swerved particularly into the intersection of celebrity, classism, and crime. The Last Duel fits into this as well. Sure, it’s another historical epic from the guy who made Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven (the director’s cut of that movie is good, I promise), but it is also a story about class and celebrity and crime. I am SUPER curious to see where this interest of Scott’s takes us this year.
The House of Gucci trailer plays up the family drama angle to the story, and part of the story is that Maurizio Gucci (played by possible centaur Adam Driver) battled with his family over the future of their fashion house. But the main focus is on Lady Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani Gucci, the woman who was eventually convicted for Maurizio’s murder. As Lainey previously pointed out, this element of the story seems to be getting lost in the shuffle amidst the fashion and the camp and the Gaga of it all. I don’t think this trailer is really helping, it’s not exactly drawing a straight line from Patrizia to the man holding the gun and a photo of Maurizio. Like Lainey, I’m a little worried people are going to go in expecting one thing and be disappointed when the movie is actually a rather grubby murder story that just happens to take place in glamorous places.
But before we deal with that, let us enjoy this trailer and everything that comes with it. We have Fashion! And accents! And whatever is going on with Jared Leto’s face! I have to ask, because this is the same thing Kevin Spacey was doing as J. Paul Getty in All the Money before he got sacked and replaced by Christopher Plummer, but what is the point of hiring an actor that has to become unrecognizable through prosthetics in order to appear the way you want the character to appear? Why not just…hire someone else? Someone who looks more like the way you envision the character? I’m just saying, Paul Giamatti is RIGHT THERE, Ridley. Like he’s a real person that exists, and you can hire him to act in things. But instead, we have Jared Leto under a mountain of prosthetics, saying “chic” and sending me right back to that rant in Phantom Thread. Also, I love the way Leto is trilling his “Rs” with his accent. It’s so over the top. My favorite thing about this trailer are the accents, and how everyone is from a different imaginary part of Italy.
