House of Gucci
Director: Ridley Scott

Some names carry an incantational power. When a brash young Italian woman, Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga), hears that the gawky young man (Adam Driver) she meets at a party bears the Gucci name, a spell is cast that will end in murder.

This is the premise of Ridley Scott’s patchy new movie House of Gucci, based on true events recounted in a book by Sara Gay Forden that bears the glitzy subtitle A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed. It follows a relatively new genre of true crime dramas such as The People vs OJ Simpson or The Assassination of Gianni Versace that focus on a single celebrity while exploring wider concerns. Here, perhaps because the celebrity is not an individual but a fashion brand, the tantalising threads of larger themes never quite pull together.