When Patrizia and Maurizio were together, the Italian press dubbed her “the Joan Collins of Monte Napoleone,” referring to an upscale shopping street in Milan. The movie compresses and streamlines the story - Patrizia and Maurizio had two daughters, not just one Aldo Gucci had three sons, not just Paolo Maurizio was shot four times, not just three - with the book dedicating much more space to the business machinations and seemingly endless lawsuits the family members would file against one another. The screenplay is credited to Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna, from a story by Johnston that adapted Sara Gay Forden’s 2000 book “House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour and Greed.” (Have many other films taken a book’s subtitle so strongly as a directive?) Played by Lady Gaga and Adam Driver, Patrizia and Maurizio are part of a constellation of characters in the movie, which also includes Maurizio’s father, Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons), his uncle Aldo (Al Pacino) and cousin Paolo (Jared Leto), among others. The film focuses on the story of Maurizio Gucci and his wife, Patrizia, as her ambitions to be part of a world of extreme wealth and power lead her to orchestrate his 1995 murder. It was likely Aldo Gucci who began the story that the family was descended from noble saddlemakers to the medieval courts, when his father and company founder Guccio Gucci actually began his career working at the Savoy Hotel in London before opening a small shop in his native Florence, Italy. It’s fitting that Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci” has a title card that reads “inspired by the true story.” The Gucci family themselves had long been careful mythmakers and shapers of the company’s image.
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