glossy prestige picture and high camp melodrama, when it would have done better to commit more fully to just one of those approaches. <\/span>The result is something that is at times riotously fun but also tonally all over the shop \u2013 an operatic pantomime full of dodgy accents, sumptuous costumes, and line readings that seem destined to live on as reaction gifs for many years to come.<\/p> At the centre of it, are Lady Gaga and Adam Driver, who play Patrizia and Maurizio respectively. Much has already been made of Gaga\u2019s Oscar chances in only her second major screen role (after 2018\u2019s A Star Is Born) and she\u2019s certainly a magnetic presence in the lead, full of charisma and charm and \u2013 when the script demands it \u2013 menace, even if the nine months she reportedly spent perfecting her Italian accent seems to have been rather wasted. Next to her, Driver is a more understated presence, grounding the film with by far the most naturalistic turn on show, although he too tries his best to adopt an accent.<\/p>\n
The performances around that central pair are almost universally hammy \u2013 with Al Pacino, Salma Hayek and Jeremy Irons among those to turn in enjoyable scenery-chewing performances. By far the biggest swings, however, are taken by Jared Leto \u2013 in heavy prosthetics as Maurizio\u2019s cousin Paolo \u2013 who delivers a comically flamboyant turn that will delight some but which I found to be rather obnoxious. It\u2019s the kind of performance that might have worked had he been a comedy side-character with just a few contributions, but the more he becomes involved the more tiresome this broad stereotype becomes, and I found that initial amusement rather quickly turned to annoyance. There\u2019s absolutely nothing wrong with cartoonish, theatrical performances \u2013 and indeed they seem well suited to the subject matter \u2013 but the problem in House of Gucci is that they don\u2019t always coalesce with each other, heightening the sense of unevenness already felt in the movie.<\/span><\/p>\n