‘House of Gucci’ a bit threadbare

Of that magic word, “Gucci,” Patrizia Reggiani purrs, “it was a name that sounded so sweet.” And it surely is when Lady Gaga luxuriates over the two decadent syllables—GOOT-CHEE—with enough pizzazz that you can smell the richly worked leather goods.

“House of Gucci” opens circa 1980 with Gaga’s fearless Patrizia sinking her formidable hooks into Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver), the bespectacled scion of the fashion house. Patrizia, the sexy daughter of a presumably mobbed-up trucking magnate, stalks Maurizio around Milan and shakes a tailfeather until he’s compelled to date her.

When introduced to the family, she does not impress Maurizio’s father Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons), a vampiric 50% shareholder of the Gucci brand, who won’t forgive Patrizia for mistaking the Klimt piece in his foyer for a Picasso. Her charms work better on uncle Aldo (Al Pacino)—at his birthday bash she says, “70? They say it’s the new 69,” and they share a randy laugh.

Pacino’s typically loud performance looks like subtle thespianism next to Jared Leto’s turn as his failson, Paolo Gucci. It’s as broad a caricature of Italian-ness that has ever been committed to film—even Roberto Benigni would tell Jared he needed to calm down. Leto flits about with an energy so frantic that extra virgin olive oil drips from his pores, puttanesca sauce courses through his veins, and he pisses Limoncello. Paolo designs terrible clothes that his father won’t allow on the runway and hits himself on the head with a newspaper while muttering his defeatist catchphrase: “Boof.”

The least objectionable figure is family consigliere Domenico De Sole (Jack Huston in an enviable midnight black beard), who is suspiciously always the best dressed man in a room full of Guccis. After some light tax evasion, Maurizio dumps Patrizia and flees to Switzerland to shack up with new friend, Paola (Camille Cottin)—they boast a pair of schnozzes that would intimidate a couple of toucans. Betrayed and somewhat less rich, Patrizia turns to Pina (Salma Hayek) a television psychic who schemes up revenge like a proper femme fatale.

We meet all these absurd people and follow them around for over two hours through increasingly tiresome cycles of luxe living, insensate in-fighting and serial arrests. There are roughly one thousand shots of people pulling up a well-kept driveway and entering a doorway. Lady Gaga’s total commitment and indomitable 5-foot-nothing swagger at least makes her scenes watchable, like when she makes the sign of the cross and says, “Father, Son, and House of Gucci.” For all her awfulness, Patrizia is the most sympathetic person in the film, because she’s always correct in her understanding of other people’s nastiness.

Along with “The Last Duel,” this is Ridley Scott’s second 150-plus minute family psychodrama of 2001. But “House of Gucci” feels far too long and lugubrious—wouldn’t it be more interesting to see how Clint Eastwood would’ve made the film into a 100-minute affair? When you stir from your chair at the end of the exhausting runtime, you can only echo the enigmatic but immortal word of Paolo: “Boof.”

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“House of Gucci” is showing at Prime Cinemas Sonoma. Rated R. Running time 2:38. Visit prime-cinemas.com.