Almost There: Lady Gaga in "House of Gucci"
Saturday, February 26, 2022 at 3:00PM 
Last time, in the Almost There series, I asked you to vote on what performance should be explored next. Mike Faist in West Side Story was the resounding victor. However, since Spielberg's musical is still not available to stream or rent, we'll first look at the runner-up choice from that poll. She's none other than Lady Gaga in House of Gucci. After scoring nominations with all major precursors, she seemed set for her second acting Oscar nod. However, as luck would have it, her outrageous awards campaign ended in a snub from the Academy. She might still win some trophies before the season is over, but that coveted little golden man is out of reach.
While it's easy to lose oneself in the glamour of the role and those ridiculous interviews, there's plenty to admire in Gaga's star turn as Patrizia Reggiani, ex-wife to Maurizio Gucci, who she had killed after an acrimonious separation…
"It was a name that sounded so sweet, so seductive. Synonymous with wealth, style, power." – one of the most glaring failings of the performance slaps you right in the face during the movie's opening. Introducing us into Gucci's world of obscene luxury through Lady Gaga's narration isn't a wrong decision on Ridley Scott's part, especially when one considers the tonalities she builds with the words. There's a sense of conspiratorial confidences, a secret shared between equals in warm whispers. Her ability to create an intimate connection with the audience is a testament to raw star power, but even such qualities can't hide the technical missteps.
The accent is justly infamous, sounding like a messy negotiation of pseudo-Italian and American consonants, while all the vowels tumble towards a muted New York pronunciation. Nevertheless, there's evident care to capture Reggiani's vocal specificities, how accents can reveal class origins and illustrate class aspirations, so one can't reasonably criticize Lady Gaga for lack of effort. Her few fully Italian phrases ring a more authentic cadence than the marble-mouthed English. Nevertheless, the result makes Patrizia sound like a Russian mafia seductress out of some culturally-reductive SNL sketch.
It's not enough to entirely sabotage the performance, but it's still a hindrance. What's most frustrating about this state of affairs is that one can glimpse the light of a powerhouse star turn happening beneath the shadows of vocal pitfalls. The line-readings aren't necessarily bad despite the accent, which makes the whole artistic decision on Scott's part even more head-scratching. If you're not going to do this story in Italian, as it should be, at least surrender to Hollywood artifice and have the actors talk with their natural voices. It'd be less distracting than the inconsistent compromise that ended up on the screen.
Beyond her Italian accent by way of Moscow (very Miss Fame doing Donatella), Lady Gaga shines best when playing Patrizia within the confines of an uncertain romance. Before it becomes a true-crime drama of dubious taste, House of Gucci devotes significant attention to the courting of its central couple, how there's genuine affection there, desire, passion, mutual infatuation. As the young Patrizia, Lady Gaga walks a fine line between embodying seductiveness while allowing a mercenary's glint to manifest, the hints of a dark future. The first meeting with Maurizio at a costume party is a perfect example. The actress plays up the innocence of awkward flirting, but her boldest gesture is reserved for a flash of lust. Not for the man. For his name.
An ambiguity of intention is difficult to portray, especially when delivering a piece of maximalist acting as florid as this one. And yet, Gaga manages to hold two possible truths at the same level, regardless of their antithetical natures. In her hands, Patrizia is attracted to Maurizio for who he is, the person, the body, and what he represents. Her pull towards him is both honest and underhanded, a consequence of the heart's desire as well as the calculated move of a social climber. Maybe it's the earnestness that Lady Gaga brings to every role. Perhaps it's the sheer intensity of sentiment that bullies the audience into believing Patrizia's contradictions without batting an eye. Whatever the case may be, it works.
In the movie, Lady Gaga is directly compared to Elizabeth Taylor, and the similarity goes deeper than just surface appearance. Even without those Oscar-nominated brunette locks, the performance is reminiscent of Taylor's performances in films like Raintree County and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. There's unrefined broadness to how both performers confront the role. Every pose and expression exploded into a supernova of excess. It often stumbles into naïve camp, but it's impossible to take one's eyes away from the star shining on the screen. She's magnetic, especially when a scene demands she recede into the background or sacrifice chaos for stillness.
For all her undisciplined bravado, Gaga is quite excellent when reacting to her fellow actors, punctuating their choices with a silent movie siren's electric expressivity. It all depends on her scene partner, though. With Jared Leto, Gaga almost seems small by comparison, still fun to watch but also more illuminating as far as characterization goes. Irons flattens the diva into her meekest register, while Hayek leads to Joan Crawford-esque unraveling. Al Pacino is her best companion, though, beckoning the leading lady into a performance of Machiavellian theater, full of self-satisfied smirks and seething anger. As a general note, the bigger her castmates go, the more Gaga's Patrizia feels at home within House of Gucci.
The problem arises from the fact that her scenes tend to be shared with Adam Driver. Simply put, they don't gel as costars beyond the first loving chapters of the story. When the Gucci's marriage goes to ruin, Patrizia's despair comes to the forefront, and their dynamic loses balance. Furthermore, Scott's direction does nothing to frame them as polarizing forces existing in the same dramatic wavelength, making Driver look bullishly minor key and Gaga like an overacting machine spinning out of control. Inspired meme-able moments aside, this is where she risks becoming an unintentional parody of serious acting, a funhouse mirror reflection of Oscar-hungry prestige. Intellectually, there is value in how false and forced this Patrizia Regianni feels, though.
Gaga's creation makes the woman into a lie so intensely told that you reach a point where truth doesn't matter anymore, only the hyper-untruth of Hollywood artifice. That doesn't mean it's terrible, but it sure verges on laughable. All in all, even if I wouldn't have nominated Lady Gaga for an Oscar, I respect her performance and wish contemporary cinema had more of her brand of blind charisma married to tragic sincerity and an innate sense of drama. She's a one-woman opera buffa, an absurd spectacle that earns applause despite its many failings.
Relative to pandemic numbers, House of Gucci's box office was substantial. Indeed, it's one of the biggest non-franchise successes of last year, which, once upon a time, might have guaranteed a triumphant award run. It seemed like that was its fate for most of the season, especially when it came to Lady Gaga's Best Actress bid. The movie overperformed at SAG, making Gaga a double nominee, both in her individual category and as part of House of Gucci's ensemble cast. At BAFTA, she was the only likely Oscar contender to score a coveted Best Actress nomination, which, thanks to current rules, meant she was among the voting body's top two choices.
Add to that Globe and Critics Choice nominations, and Lady Gaga felt like the surest thing going into Oscar nomination morning. But of course, this has been a chaotic season as far as Best Actress is concerned, culminating in the pop star's absence from the Academy's final lineup. Instead, AMPAS chose Jessica Chastain in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Olivia Colman in The Lost Daughter, Penélope Cruz in Parallel Mothers, Nicole Kidman in Being the Ricardos, and Kristen Stewart in Spencer. It's hard to say which of them was in fifth place and ended up overthrowing Lady Gaga's apparent lock. However, since Stewart's movie got no other nomination, she seems like the logical answer. Do you agree, or was there another more vulnerable nominee on the ballot?
You can rent House of Gucci on Apple iTunes, Cineplex, Microsoft Store, ILLICO, Amazon Video, Google Play, and Youtube.
Reader Comments (26)
I can’t help but wonder how much this year’s voters were swayed by their memories of a previous Oscar campaign. In 2018, Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper drew Oscar nominations for A Star is Born.
Jump to the present. Each was highly touted by pundits as expected nominees for their first acting roles since that $400 million hit film. Yet, both were snubbed by AMPAS voters. Is this joint dismissal a delayed response to the popular remake? Have Cooper and Gaga given highly regarded efforts but been sabotaged by emotions generated by their earlier success?
I almost had a fit when I saw that headline.
The problem with House of Gucci is that it frames Patrizia as some kind of corporate mastermind whose cunning and ambition shape the direction of Gucci, the brand. It fails to demonstrate that in any persuasive way; She is not a shark or a key player in the business intrigue at all.
Ultimately she comes across as a pathetic, mentally ill woman who is temporarily on the periphery of a great family. I don't buy what the movie is trying to give her credit for.
Great write-up, by the way, even if it only makes me more repulsed by the performance and the film it rode in on.
A uniformly terrible performance that is only strengthened by the fact that the movie on the whole is even worse.
Marion Cotillard won an Oscar (that should have been given to Julie Christie) for a terrible film, but her performance was one that deserved recognition.
House of Gucci is the worst movie I have seen in many years. Gaga definitely didn't deserve a nomination for this piece of complete trash.
A uniformly terrible performance that is only strengthened by the fact that the movie on the whole is even worse.
Marion Cotillard won an Oscar (that should have been given to Julie Christie) for a terrible film, but her performance was one that deserved recognition.
House of Gucci is the worst movie I have seen in many years. Gaga definitely didn't deserve a nomination for this piece of complete trash.
Has there been a more wrongheaded campaign in recent years?
This was her nomination to lose, and she lost it spouting nonsense in those interviews and round-tables.
This reminds me of the Ridley Scott movie “The Counselor” (2013) that almost everyone piled on and sneered at. That one has seemed to be undergoing a critical re-evaluation as it becomes clearer in the distance.
I thought that response to “House of Gucci” contained a certain amount of frustration that it didn’t fit neatly into an expected genre box. But it was saved from “The Counselor” vitriol because it was clear, in the present, that Lady Gaga was doing something special.
When Ridley Scott’s body of work becomes the subject of retrospectives, all the bits that seemed to jar and not fit into place, will be seen in a larger pattern. I think we will be surprised that we didn’t appreciate him enough. No wonder he was so cranky, doing peak work, that people seemed to willfully misunderstand.
It was a reasonably good performance in a horrific film with a bunch of people acting like they were cast in different films from each other (a la "Big Eyes"). Would not have made my Best Actress list but I wouldn't have been too mad had she made it.
McGill--great thoughts that I heartily cosign.
This was an egregious snub. Gaga took a poorly written role and used all her formidable resources as a performer and made it cohere in a dramatically spectacular way. She found a way to make that character work, even when there were elements in the picture that fought against it.
The New York Film Critics Circle, BAFTA, SAG and the Globes got it right. Oscar messed up.
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She's phenomenal in this and if anyone actually bothered to hear what the real Patrizia sounds like they'd realize she does a great job capturing her voice. I'm glad I don't run in the circles that sneered at this because it's a genuine movie star performance in a time when we don't get those anymore. I'm still annoyed at the snub and people trying to deny that she's got real talent in acting but she'll show them eventually. I enjoyed HoG, it's very messy but has A+ actressing and Pacino looks like he's actually enjoying himself plus Adam Driver constantly smiling in a cute floppy wig. Love it. Haters gonna hate but the fact that audiences will actually turn out to watch a Lady Gaga movie in the theater in 2021 is pretty damn impressive.
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Somewhere deep down I know she is a bit shaky at times especially when we are asked to believe in her as a master plotter and she and Driver are mismatched as actors but I absolutely loved her in it and would have her as a nominee,not quite sure if she'd surpasses Chastain or Thompson for the win on a rewatch she may.
She's leagues ahead and far more entertaining than what Stewart and Kidman are doing with the famous people they are playing and their films are no better or worse than HOG.
Neither of those 2 got the accent quite right either,listen on YouTube and Kidman does not get Lucy's voice it was more husky and raspy,Stewart starts at wispy and finishes there.
The best voice work this year was Chastain,that Betty Boop giggly laughing voice is a delight everytime
I don't think we we're meant to take the film too seriously and that's what some may dislike,It's hard to know sometimes what tone it's aiming for and it verges on camp but I liked those campy moments
"Father Son House of Gucci" is total camp but delivered fabulously.
Who knew a teaspoon could be so menacing,the campy bit with the photo book.
One of my favourite parts was that hug she gives the mistress.
The performance is full of great moments funny,campy,flawed,emotional,OTT,sexy it's all there,I do get why people don't like her in it.
Leto is plain embarassing though.
Thanks Claudio for a measured review.
A very watchable bad performance.
LOL at all the pundits predicting Gucci everywhere.
Sarah : well said. I LOVED her performance - could not take my eyes off of her. And she broke my heart in the film's last quarter. I hope she wins at SAG because she deserves it.
It's a headscratcher of a performance in a messy film; looks like Scott only acting direction was "act harder" and she did it. It's an on your face, bad accent, broad, flamboyant turn that usually would be overlooked by body of awards as "too much", Gaga still doesn't have the subtlety of, let's say, Blanchett, Stone, Diaz or even Lawrence who have delivered these kinda hardwired performances before (Blue Jasmine, Casino, Diabolique, The Counselor, American Hustle) in a more layered manner (just look at what an actress of the caliber of Chastain can do with Tammy Faye). It's campy & entertaining, but hand to God, I'd never expected her to be nominated for anything, especially over much stronger competition.
It's incredible how much the vibe of this category changed with her snub. Nominated, it would have been all about her, whether she could win, whether she deserved to.
Without her, it's an all-timer of a category with no true front-runner.
Interesting that people still want to keep discussing this performance even though there's really nothing more to say about it (and there's an "all-timer" line-up in Best Actress, supposedly).
^^^“We” don’t want to. The reason we’re still discussing it is that “Spielberg's musical is still not available to stream or rent,” although I have to say the logic of that escapes me. You can read about Faist’s performance without (re)watching it, or you can just go see it in the theater (or on a screener). Unless Cláudio is saying that he himself has no access to the film right now.
jules -- Well, this entire series is about discussing non-nominated performances, not the actual oscar lineup, no matter how wonderful it is this year.
Working stiff -- I don't have a screener of WEST SIDE STORY, and part of my methodology for this series involves me re-watching the movies while taking notes on the performance, specifically. Also, I need to have the film to be able to screenshot it, especially when it's a supporting performance like Faist's, where some of the best bits aren't available on trailers or released clips - I'm thinking, for instance, of the fatalistic energy he exudes during the "Tonight Quintet" and the subsequent rumble.
Thanks to all of you guys for the feedback :) And thanks for reading this.
A very cogent and generous analysis!
I was horrified by this performance. I saw nothing in Gaga's eyes/face for 2.5 hours. A most deserving snub!
The problem with this movie, in my view, is that Scott & his screenwriter deviate too much from Adam Driver’s character. It is his story, not Lady Gaga’s (or Jared Leto’s for that matter). Lady Gaga might have walked away with a supporting actress trophy if the filmmakers had not tried to turn it into a Lady Gaga star vehicle.
@ Cláudio
That's what I feared. :(
Working stiff - The number of comments in this thread - including several from you addressing Gaga's performance - suggests that people are indeed very interested in discussing said performance.
Cláudio - True, but the Gaga discussion is hardly limited to this piece or thread on TFE.
@ jules
Well, my comments on this post are not really a "discussion" of the performance, strictly speaking. I'm always interested in responding to Cláudio's writing and looking forward to the Faist article that I expected to see here.
Thanks for sharing this post. After a long time, such a post has been seen, it is a very interesting subject, people like it. When someone shares this kind of article, the mind is happy Thank you for this article.
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