House of Gucci

Year: 2021

Actors: Salma Hayek, Al Pacino, Jared Leto, Adam Driver

Duration: 158 min

In 1978, Patrizia Reggiani is a young, attractive Italian woman working as an office manager within her father's small trucking firm. At a party, Patrizia meets Maurizio Gucci, a law student and heir to a 50% interest in the Gucci fashion house through his father Rodolfo. Patrizia aggressively pursues the awkward Maurizio, charming him into love. Rodolfo warns Maurizio that Patrizia is only after wealth and tells Maurizio that he will disinherit him if he marries Patrizia. Maurizio chooses Patrizia over his connection to Gucci, leaving the family. Patrizia and Maurizio marry, and Maurizio takes a job at the Reggiani trucking company. When Patrizia becomes pregnant, she sees her child as an avenue for familial reconciliation. She lets it slip to Maurizio's uncle Aldo that she is pregnant; Aldo is delighted by the news and takes the couple under his wing. Aldo introduces Patrizia to his unintelligent son Paolo, who aspires to be a designer within Gucci despite his lack of talent. Thanks to Aldo, Maurizio and a terminally ill Rodolfo reconcile shortly before the latter's death. Rodolfo writes Maurizio back into his will, but fails to sign a document transferring the Gucci shares to him before he dies. Patrizia fakes Rodolfo's signature, giving Maurizio a 50% interest in Gucci. Patrizia starts to devise a plot to obtain a controlling interest in Gucci by acquiring some of Aldo and Paolo's shares (the two hold the other 50% interest). She clashes with Aldo over the firm's clandestine sale of cheap "fake" Gucci products on the black market, and begins to consult Giuseppina, a psychic, for guidance. She manipulates Maurizio, who has little real interest in Gucci, into taking a more active role within the company. Paolo acquires proof that Aldo has been evading taxes in the United States; he gives the proof to Patrizia in exchange for her promise that he will be allowed to design his own line. Aldo is arrested by the IRS and sentenced to a year and a day in prison. Patrizia lies to the Italian police and tells them that Paolo is not authorized to use the Gucci trademark; the police stop the fashion show by force. Patrizia and Maurizio ask Paolo to sell them his shares, but he rebuffs them and cuts ties between them. Italian police ransack Maurizio's house and attempt to arrest Maurizio for forging Rodolfo's signature. Maurizio and Patrizia flee to Switzerland, where Maurizio meets his old friend Paola Franchi. After an argument between Maurizio and Patrizia, Maurizio decides that he is tired of his wife's influence on himself and the company. He orders his wife and daughter to return to Italy and begins an affair with Paola. When Maurizio's business plans harm the company, he seeks assistance from equity company Investcorp, through which he hatches a scheme to acquire shares of the company from a now-impoverished Paolo. Aldo returns from prison and immediately realizes what Paolo has done. When Investcorp offers to buy Aldo out, he refuses until Maurizio reveals himself as the deal's instigator. Dejected, Aldo sells the shares and cuts contact with Maurizio. Patrizia attempts a reconciliation with Maurizio, but he flatly ignores her. Later, he asks Patrizia for a divorce through his long-time assistant Domenico De Sole, which Patrizia refuses. Maurizio recruits up-and-coming designer Tom Ford to revitalize the company's image through a new line. Ford's products are successful, but Maurizio has so thoroughly mismanaged the company that Investcorp's leaders feel compelled to buy him out, replacing him with Ford and De Sole. Patrizia eventually grows so furious with Maurizio that she asks Giuseppina to help her kill him. Giuseppina puts Patrizia in contact with some hitmen "from Sicily." A few days later, the hitmen shoot Maurizio to death in broad daylight outside his residence. Closing title cards to describe the fate of the remaining characters: Aldo dies of prostate cancer and Paolo died in poverty shortly following the sale of their shares to Maurizio. Patrizia, Giuseppina, and the hitmen are sentenced to long prison terms following their arrest for murder. Gucci is fully acquired by Investcorp and successfully managed into the present; no Gucci family members remain at the company.

Genre: Action   Biography   Crime   Drama