House of Gucci

A very fine cast of American actors speaking with Italian accents ensures that, despite its length, there's always something interesting happening on screen.

Isn't that all we really want from the movies? Brain soft, Gucci soothing, and that's all she wrote.

Lady Gaga makes an immediate and indelible impression as Patrizia Reggiani, the future Signora Gucci, in Ridley Scott's film about the Guccis' fractured history.

It's long and poorly paced and plays too loose with the facts. Oh, well! The bonkers true story that chronicles the unraveling of the Italian fashion empire is also first-class frothy and fun entertainment.

This glorious melodrama is an instant cult classic, a joy to behold, a meme-factory in the making...

It gave me everything I needed -- and then some. I wanted the film to be over-the-top, messy, silly, involving, gorgeous, stylish -- and it's all those things.

The Gucci house then narrates the fall of a dynasty, of an empire that no one wants to part with, because Gucci is “synonymous with seduction, wealth, style and power… but that name was also a curse.”

While the performances war for dominance and the tone goes from Dallas to drama, Scott throws everything at the screen

pure tabloid, guilty pleasure goodness. If you are a faithful devotee of Scott’s work, then you will be happy to see him emerge from the existential crisis of dread in the face of death to enthusiastic diving into the shallow end of the pool.

Lady Gaga’s extraordinary turn as Patrizia Reggiani steals the show...