I was Gaga over the Lady, and Al-in on Pacino. Brilliant work. Let’s recap:

Maurizio’s father sees Patrizia as a gold digger looking “to get her hooks” into Maurzio and disowns him. Maurizio then asks Patrizia’s father for a job in his trucking company so that he might be able to marry her. After a time Maurizio’s father passes away and he takes over 50% of the Gucci empire. But there are problems – financial and familial – and Patrizia steps in to rebuild the Gucci brand.

I had a completely different take on Patrizia. She was portrayed as a dutiful daughter, smart, and sexy. While she had ambitions to improve herself, she loved and married Maurizio when he had nothing to offer. Now, you might argue, she saw a day when Maurizio’s father would die and he would inherit the company, but that’s not on the screen. As far as we can see, she loved Maurizio and stood by him in poverty and wealth.

We also see that she has a shrewd business intellect. She quickly identified Aldos’ self-manufactured knock offs as diminishing the brand. She confronted Aldo and convinced her husband to end that practice. She also identified the flakey fashion designer cousin as both a resource and a liability and used her manipulation skills to simultaneously acquire his shares and eliminate him from Gucci. If she were a man, we’d call her a genius. But as a woman, using psychological techniques, she is marked as manipulative.

In parallel to Patrizia’s growth and the fall from grace, we’re witness to Maurizio’s growth in confidence, largely due to his wife’s guidance and support. Maurizio starts out as a milquetoast – shy and uninterested in the workings of the company. Once he falls in love with Patrizia, she begins guiding him until he achieves a level of confidence that he questions the need for his wife, and he divorces her. His confidence then rises to a level of arrogance that surpasses that of his father and uncle. This arrogance ultimately leads to the loss of his company to a foreign investor led by his closest legal advisor.

Once Maurizio separates from Patrizia, she becomes obsessed with getting her husband back and descends into madness and revenge. She hires a hitman (through her personal psychic) who kills Maurizio so that she can inherit what’s left of Gucci. That leads to her final demise of being tried and convicted of murder.

In my mind, this is an anti-hero story. Patrizia starts out good, is betrayed, and then falls into villainy. If Maurizio had not betrayed her, she might have led Gucci to a renaissance that would rival that of the other fine Italian fashion houses. Instead, it was taken over by foreign investors and today no member of the Gucci family is involved in the business. Patrizia is the fallen, tragic hero of this story.

I went into House of Gucci with no prior knowledge of the story nor any expectations. I thought it was a rags to riches story, and what I ended up with was true crime. I was very pleasantly surprised. I’ve read that the Italian accents were terrible. I’m not an expert on such things, so that wasn’t a concern for me.

I’ve only seen Lady Gaga in A Star is Born and she was wonderful. But that wasn’t much of a stretch for her as she was playing a rock star, which is close to who she really is. But here, she’s playing a completely different character – and knocks it out of the park. Every dimension of Patrizia is completely believable – kindness, sex appeal, manipulation, savvy – all of it is so sharply and seamlessly delivered. I think Gaga is destined for the fabled EGOT. She’s amazing.

One thing that I noticed about the direction is how Gaga is filmed. In the beginning of the film, she’s shot in a middling way – from the front. As she grows in confidence and power, we get close ups of her, she fills the screen. She becomes bigger. And once she’s cast away, she’s shot from above – making her look small, especially as compared to a towering Driver. It’s an impressive choice by the director.

Other performances by Leto and Pacino are brilliant as well. I never recognize Leto until I see the credits, and then have to reflect on what I saw. He melts into the role and give a tertiary character a depth that would have been lost to a lesser actor. Pacino, I feel, has no need to stretch in this role – which makes him all the more believable. Adam Driver is wooden and clumsy in this role. Which works to his advantage as Maurizio is likewise wooden and clumsy. I wish I could attribute this to Driver’s skill, but I think he likewise had no need to stretch.

For a compelling anti-hero story, well-written, superbly acted, and beautifully shot, I give House of Gucci 5 out of 5 Reels. And for an uncommon fall-from-grace anti-hero story, I give it 4 out of 5 Heroes.