Designer’s vicious swipe at new Gaga film

Tom Ford isn’t mincing his words when it comes to his thoughts about House of Gucci.

And neither is the actual Gucci family. Both the luxury clothing label and the fashion designer, 60, expressed their disgust over the movie.

Ford was the creative director of the Gucci fashion label from 1994 to 2004. And so it was perfectly fitting for the designer cum filmmaker to give his take on the ensemble Ridley Scott drama.
 

Actor Reeve Carney portrays the young and rising Ford in House of Gucci, and the couturier penned his thoughts about the film in an essay for Air Mail.

He enjoyed the flick’s costumes and sets, as well as stars Lady Gaga and Adam Driver’s performances.

“The movie rivals the night-time soap Dynasty for subtlety but does so with a much bigger budget,” Ford noted.

“The film is … well, I’m still not quite sure what it is exactly, but somehow I felt as though I had lived through a hurricane when I left the theatre,” he wrote. “Was it a farce or a gripping tale of greed?”

The A Single Man director continued, “I often laughed out loud, but was I supposed to?” He then touched upon the performances of Al Pacino, as Aldo Gucci, and Jared Leto, as his son Paolo Gucci, and said they were a “Saturday Night Live version” of the Gucci family.
 

Ford then explained that Leto’s portrayal of Paolo was not like how the real-life businessman was. “Paolo, whom I met on several occasions, was indeed eccentric and did some wacky things, but his overall demeanour was certainly not like the crazed and seemingly mentally challenged character of Leto’s performance,” Ford wrote.

Ford concluded that he was “deeply sad for several days after watching House of Gucci. ”

“It was hard for me to see the humour and camp in something that was so bloody. In real life, none of it was camp. It was at times absurd, but ultimately it was tragic,” he penned.

“But with Gaga’s and Driver’s strong performances, powerful over-the-top portrayals by the entire cast, impeccable costumes, stunning sets, and beautiful cinematography, the film, I suspect, will be a hit. Splash the Gucci name across things and they usually sell.”
 

The Gucci family also issued a scathing statement, via Variety, in response to the film on Monday. The fashion dynasty said, “The production of the film did not bother to consult the heirs before describing Aldo Gucci — president of the company for 30 years [played by Al Pacino in the film] — and the members of the Gucci family as thugs,

ignorant and insensitive to the world around them,” the statement said.

“This is extremely painful from a human point of view and an insult to the legacy on which the brand is built today,” the statement continued. “[The film] couldn’t be further from the truth.”
The screenplay was written by Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna, based on the book The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed by Sara Gay Forden.

The family’s statement continued, “Gucci is a family that lives honouring the work of its ancestors, whose memory does not deserve to be disturbed to stage a spectacle that is untrue and which does not do justice to its protagonists.”

Finally, they added that “the members of the Gucci family reserve the right to take action to protect the name, image and dignity of themselves and their loved ones.”

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and is reproduced here with permission