The first reviews of Ridley Scott's House of Gucci about the scandal in the titular fashion empire has divided critics. On review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 61 per cent rating. The critical consensus reads, "House of Gucci vacillates between inspired camp and dour drama too often to pull off a confident runway strut, but Lady Gaga's note-perfect performance has a timeless style all its own." The film stars Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons, Salma Hayek, and Al Pacino. The reviews praise performances, production design and value, but say the tone is uneven and the film is unsure whether to go full campy or include grimmer elements. Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern wrote, "I found the film so insistently campy yet painfully mirthless-its style lies somewhere between opera buffa and telenovela-that my mental state of acute anguish may have skewed my perceptions of whatever the story has to offer." Minneapolis Star Tribune's Chris Hewitt wrote, "You reach the end of the movie, sometimes having been entertained and more often irritated, and wonder, 'What were they trying to do here?'" Financial Times' Danny Leigh wrote, "House of Gucci is not only a bad film, but a bad advert for cinema." Observer's Rex Reed was a little more positive. He wrote, "Like it or not, see this lavish soap opera and you'll know you've been to the movies." Globe and Mail's Barry Hertz said the film is terrible, but one has to admire Scott's intentions, if nothing else. "It is, at times, nakedly and bewilderingly bad - but you have to admire Scott's energy," he wrote.
