![]() ![]() Pacino is surprisingly measured as he authentically plays the domineering Italian aging alpha male. They both craft and execute the arcs of the men they’re playing, ascending and descending respectively, in their familial and business roles in ways that resonate. Performance wise, Driver and Pacino have the best handle on their characters. As a caricature of the spurned Italian woman, she’s increasingly dependent on her personal psychic, Giuseppina Auriemma (an underutilized Salma Hayek) and is increasingly sidelined from the action as Maurizio evolves into the man his ex-wife wanted him to be, pulling off chilling business moves that eventually put Aldo in jail for tax fraud. ![]() As the relationship disintegrates, Patrizia becomes an emoting machine, erupting with jealousy or anger as Maurizio slips through her fingers, which is deserving considering her behavior. Because of that, Patrizia and Maurizio devolve into sketches of their characters. He’s out of his depth in this world, unprepared to truly navigate it, yet helpless in deterring Patrizia’s orchestrations.Īs the years tick by and the runtime blooms, Scott sort of Cliffsnotes their marriage, sacrificing the intimacy of their relationship for the bigger picture familial drama. calculating man he never wanted to be, all the while aware of the moral corruption that comes with the money and power in his family. All the sympathy then transfers to Maurizio as he’s forced to transform into the slick. The script doesn’t make it clear why she chooses this path over her husband, so we’re left to guess which makes her more and more distant as a connectable character. Gaga is certainly charming as Patrizia even when she’s working his cousin and uncle as pawns to be played to their advantage. Maybe because Scott does such a good job in the first act getting the audience behind Patrizia and Maurizio, it doesn’t make a lot of sense when Patrizia asserts herself as an opportunistic shark, embracing a social and financial ambition that is almost entirely lacking in her husband. Too much of the narrative is given over to side characters and scenes that are overindulgent. He’s going to be a pawn played by his wife and his blood relatives for control, and this is where the movie starts to go off the rails. With only two male heirs left to potentially take over the family business, Aldo knows his idiot son, Paolo (Jared Leto), is a non-starter and that Maurizio is their only option to keep the legacy strong. However, Patrizia is not settled with that decision so she prods him to accept his Uncle Aldo’s (Al Pacino) gesture to come back to the family. Because of that, it really resonates why Maurizio is extremely content and happy to work for his in-law’s, and leave the burden of his name behind him. Through beautifully shot family dinners and lush courtyard conversations in and around Gucci's huge estates, Scott does a fine job setting up the implied dynamics of the haves and have-nots in the story, and how Maurizio’s life has always been orchestrated behind the scenes by the men in his family. Their polar opposite character vibes make for a very charming, and for a moment, smouldering hot courtship that grounds the characters and our feelings about them before they take on his Gucci relatives.Īnd the duo are forced to enter the maelstrom of his world-famous family when his father, Rodolfo Gucci (Jeremy Irons), rejects Patrizia as a gold digger and cuts off his son for eventually wanting to marry her. ![]() Driver offers us a delightfully and unexpectedly socially awkward Maurizio, which is the perfect catnip to Gaga’s confident yet modest Patrizia. It’s an unexpectedly sweet way to open the film and gives us a sympathetic appreciation for both Patrizia and Maurizio when they meet-cute at a mutual friend’s party. The most successful part of this is the first 45 minutes, during which Scott presents the snappy, romantic, and sexy coming together of Patrizia and Maurizio in 1970. While it opens and closes with Maurizio on the day of his murder, the narrative is so scattershot in trying to service its large celebrity cast that there’s no clairty about exactly whose version of the events this is supposed to be. With that casting of Gaga as Reggiani, there shouldn’t even be a question that the movie’s point of view belongs to her, yet it surprisingly does not. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |