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Sorry, but I’ve never heard Italian accents sound so GAGA

MATTHEW BOND

House Of Gucci

Cert: 15, 2hrs 37mins

Encanto

Cert: PG, 1hr 39mins

A Boy Called Christmas

Cert: PG, 1hr 46mins

There are moments when what House Of Gucci resembles more than anything else is an episode of the old 1980s soap opera Dynasty. You certainly can’t take your eyes off the clothes, the hair and the deadly leading lady, but deep down you just know it’s not very good. Now say that in a cod-Italian accent – eetza not verry good-a – and you begin to see the generally disastrous idea.

Having dealt with the Gettys – and the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III in Rome in 1973, in particular – in his 2017 film All The Money In The World, Ridley Scott returns to strikingly similar territory with House Of Gucci. It’s obviously about the Italian fashion house but it deals primarily with events leading up to the murder of Maurizio Gucci – grandson of the company’s founder – in 1995.

Yes, it duly turns out to be a tale of intrigue, passion, jealousy and greed, but surely it deserved something a bit better than the pantomime treatment it often gets here. For starters, there are the accents. All the principal characters – Maurizio (Adam Driver), his wife Patrizia (Lady Gaga), his father Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons) and his uncle Aldo (Al Pacino) – were Italian by birth. They would have spoken Italian to each other. But here, presumably in search of cheap laughs or extra Italian-ness, Scott decides they will all speak in English but with Italian accents.

The cast throw themselves into this task with varying degrees of enthusiasm – from Irons’s hardly at all to Jared Leto’s (he’s playing Aldo’s son, Paolo) way, way too much, via Lady Gaga’s surprisingly Slavic-sounding take. Yes, the great Ridley Scott has gone full ’Allo, ’Allo!

Throw in a marathon running time of more than two-and-a-half hours, a creative tone that lurches unevenly from serious drama to high comedy and wildly over-thetop performances from Leto and Pacino and you see the scale of the problem. That said, Lady Gaga looks fabulous and the parallel mud-bath scene she shares with Salma Hayek, who plays her clairvoyant, is a hoot.

But elsewhere, in a film not helped by a singularly duff screenplay, there are too many scenes when either Pacino or Irons or Scott seem to have forgotten how they end. Very odd, very disappointing.

Encanto is apparently the 60th animated feature film from Walt Disney and continues the good work recently done by its Pixar subsidiary in reaching out to demographics that might previously have felt ignored. So this is set in Colombia, where the Madrigal family have settled after fleeing violent oppression.

But the Madrigals didn’t settle just anywhere; they live in a magical house protected by a magical candle that also grants each Madrigal a special gift. Luisa, for example, is amazingly strong, while the beautiful Isabela can make flowers bloom at will. Only their sister Mirabel, voiced by Stephanie Beatriz, has no gift. But when the house and its magical powers suddenly begin to wane, might this be her big moment?

With songs by the prolific LinManuel Miranda, colour-drenched animation and nice underlying messages about the importance of extended family, this is a safe bet for a rainy afternoon. But for all its magical themes, it does lack just a little magic of its own.

Equally safe for those with small children is A Boy Called Christmas, which younger children will enjoy as a slightly unusual Finnish-flavoured Christmasorigins story involving a brave boy, a talking mouse and an obliging reindeer.

Meanwhile, their parents can spend their time playing spot the star. There’s Maggie Smith as a dreaded aunt, Jim Broadbent as a Finnish king, Toby Jones and Sally Hawkins as elves… and yes, apparently that really is Kristen Wiig in a minor aunt role.

Very strange.

Cinema

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2021-11-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-11-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://mailonline.pressreader.com/article/282681870530596

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