A mesmerising mess.

To last as long at the top of the game as Ridley Scott has, variety is absolutely everything. The man’s ability to continue flourishing within such a cutthroat industry has been quite something, and it’s a testament to his ongoing adaptability as a filmmaker that, at the ripe old age of 83, Scott remains one of the most prolific and varied directors in Hollywood today.

I mean, what other filmmakers – never mind octogenarian ones - can boast the worldwide theatrical release of two films so diametrically opposed as The Last Duel and House of Gucci within the space of mere weeks?

The sheer variety and volume in Ridley Scott’s output over the years is quite frankly astonishing, and enough to suggest his love for filmmaking has never dimmed. However, with a somewhat spotty track record of late, it’s tough to predict what side of Ridley will come strutting down the catwalk with House of Gucci.

An outsider from humble beginnings, Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) seems stuck with her humdrum life as an office manager for her father’s trucking firm. However, when she meets and marries Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver), heir to the Gucci fashion house, her unabashed ambition begins to unravel a family legacy built through generations. As she ruthlessly pulls herself to the top, Patrizia’s plans trigger a reckless spiral of betrayal, decadence, revenge, and murder.

Despite the self-confidence House of Gucci has exuded throughout its marketing campaign, boldly putting itself forward as an over-the-top, high camp farce, the result is a dreary drag and certainly one of the most confused film’s you’ll see all year.

Half the challenge of engaging with House of Gucci as a viewing experience is in the struggle to figure out just what film it’s actually trying to be – and it feels like Ridley Scott himself was wrestling with this very question throughout too. Caught somewhere between farcical camp and dour crime drama, House of Gucci doesn’t offer nearly enough of either, ending up lost somewhere in the middle.

The bad wigs, the bold fashion statements, and the outrageous accents are certainly present and correct, however, despite appearances, House of Gucci really isn’t the wild ride it sells itself as. What fun there is to be had with House of Gucci often arrives awkwardly and frequently feels like you’re laughing at the film rather than with it.

Parallel to this, the film’s overt desire to be taken seriously as a drama similarly falls on its face. Granted, there’s certainly an inherent intrigue to the story’s tangled web of murder and deceit, yet not enough is made of it to truly satisfy.

Clocking in at a hefty 157 minutes, the film’s central drama quite frankly isn’t enough to fill its bloated runtime, weighing itself down with plot baggage and scene after scene of disjointed, poorly developed moments that service neither the plot nor its characters. The result is a confused, disjointed mess that lets itself down with poor plotting and a severe lack of focus.

Filtered through the director’s patented neutral aesthetic, House of Gucci fails to ignite the screen, with Ridley Scott’s dedication to his trusty muted look doing the film’s promised vibrancy no favours at all. While this dampened visual style has served Scott exceptionally well for over four decades, its deployment here just feels misjudged, sucking all the life out of the story and leaving it a sullen mess.

For a film that sells itself on its glitz and glamour, House of Gucci comes up painfully short, and while it would be remiss of me to suggest this was the wrong directorial choice for someone of Scott’s calibre, you can’t help but wonder how the story would’ve played out in the hands of someone with more visual punch.

Burdened with the rigid structure of your average biopic, House of Gucci’s story covers the kind of expansive timeframe you’d imagine for a two-and-a-half-hour film, however, much of its content just feels superfluous. With little care taken to make things feel cohesive or emotionally engaging, scenes just drop before we swiftly move on, as they come and go with no time to breathe.

It’s rare for a film to be overlong and overstuffed while feeling empty, yet House of Gucci manages it. It’s an odd contradiction, and one that makes for a disjointed watch that, despite an uptick in urgency in the third act, ends up dull, ponderous, and nothing like what we’d been promised.

Alleviating these issues to some extent, the film’s cast are, for the most part, very decent, and even as the rest of House of Gucci begins to crumble around them, their performances are enough to make it watchable at the very least. However, as enjoyable as the cast are, the fun to be had with them isn’t always for the right reasons.

As the film’s stars, Lady Gaga and Adam Driver are an impossibly alluring pair, managing to work the screen and hold your attention even as the rest of the film faulters. With palpable onscreen chemistry, the duo are nothing less than a delight throughout, with Gaga in particular doing a fantastic job of carrying the film through its rough moments, as she puts to bed any lingering concerns regarding her ability to continue her A Star is Born form.

Outside this central pairing, House of Gucci has quite the ensemble going for it, with Jeremy Irons and Salma Hayek doing their thing, Jack Huston showing what a talent he is, and Al Pacino stealing the show with one of his finest turns in years. Yet, none of these will be the performance hogging film discourse for the foreseeable future.

Utterly unrecognisable and with an Italian accent that would make Mario weep, Leto constantly appears to be attempting his best Dolmio family impression and off in his own film entirely. Doubling down on the camp for a performance that leaves no piece of scenery un-chewed, Leto’s Paolo Gucci is an absolute whirlwind of ham and prosthetics, and while it’s certainly an entertaining watch in an otherwise dour film, little of the humour seems intentional.

Leto’s appearance in the film and his utterly bizarre approach to it really does encapsulate House of Gucci’s inherent problems. Much like Leto’s utter confusion about what film he’s supposed to be in, Ridley Scott likewise never feels comfortable with what House of Gucci is or what exactly he’s to do with the story, making for one of the most bewildering and frustrating films of the year.

Caught somewhere between high camp biopic and glossy crime drama, House of Gucci fails to pull off either, winding up a confused, dour mishmash of both. Despite stylish performances from Lady Gaga and the rest of the cast (not called Jared Leto), House of Gucci sorely lacks the pizzazz to pull off its glamourous ambitions, while coming up short on the emotional bite needed to operate as a crime drama. The result is an ugly mess of bad accents and poor storytelling, as the film stumbles on its way down the catwalk.