House of Gucci review: Lady Gaga is Oscar-worthy in this tacky yet utterly engrossing drama

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Get our The Life Cinematic email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Ridley Scott’s film, in turn, deliberately moulds itself around its star, Lady Gaga – a woman canny and self-aware enough to have once successfully stapled slabs of raw meat to her body and sold it as an haute couture moment. Gaga plays the film’s early scenes with a winking, playful innocence, consciously mirroring Patrizia’s story with that of Ally, her character in 2018’s A Star is Born – another ordinary woman plucked from relative obscurity. Unlike Scott’s previous directorial effort, The Last Duel – which was released only a month ago – House of Gucci feels less directly concerned with achieving contemporary relevance. Jared Leto as Paolo, ‘clearly in heaven, schlepps around in his fat suit and a bald cap so tight you can see it pulling at his skin’ House of Gucci does, indeed, harken back to the star-driven vehicles of a pre-franchise era, which is why the cast feel so entitled to their indulgences: Irons, at leisure, swallowed up in a pashmina; Salma Hayek, as Patrizia’s closest friend, planning a murder while neck-deep in a mud bath; Leto, clearly in heaven, as he schlepps around in his fat suit and a bald cap so tight you can see it pulling at his skin.