Italians love drama — especially when it’s narrated by others — and Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn’s 2025 short film The Tiger mines that appetite with delicious precision. Add fashion and family dynasties, and the spectacle intensifies.
The Tiger follows a fictionalized Barbara Gucci as she celebrates her birthday with her children — played by Elliot Page, Keke Palmer, and Edward Norton — whose conspiracy about aliens must appear in this American-Italian satire, on the day of a fitting for Gucci’s upcoming “La Famiglia” collection. She hosts Vanity Fair reporter Ed Harris aka Harlon Whitman, whom she hopes will pen an intimate portrait. It’s a full day, everyday, in Barbara Gucci’s life, who is desperate to be, act, and play perfect throughout the whole plot: “Why are you so afraid of answering my questions, Barbara?” Harris asks. “I always want to be perfect,” she answers.
Underneath the polish, Barbara is fraying. She juggles protecting the company’s image, impressing a guest of honor, parenting and an obsessive need for control. When the evening unravels, her carefully constructed façade cracks, forcing the family to confront new realities.
Ironically, Demna’s imagined famiglia feels less chaotic than the real-life Guccio Gucci dynasty ever was.
Tonally, the short sits somewhere between The Substance and The White Lotus — grotesque, satirical and slightly unnerving — a contemporary shorthand directors often deploy to expose social dysfunction while eliciting uneasy empathy. Jonze and Reijn fuse their sensibilities cleanly, balancing wry satire with moments of real tension and striking, often surreal visuals. Demi Moore, echoing her performance in The Substance, is devastating as a woman at the edge; stripped of its overt brand context, the piece could almost stand as pure drama rather than a promotional vehicle.
The Tiger also doubles as a platform for Demna’s debut collection for Gucci, “La Famiglia.” The Milan Stock Exchange premiere functioned like a runway: campaign models and celebrities paraded the brown carpet in the new looks (Moore’s gold-beaded gown — apparently very heavy — was a highlight). Guests included Gwyneth Paltrow, Jin, Serena Williams, Anna Wintour, David Jonsson, and Alia Bhatt.
Costume and narrative mirror one another: vulnerability in shimmering gowns, secrecy in sharp tailoring. Metaphor aside, the collection is compelling — pieces glide between elegance and edge in a way that’s quietly hypnotic.
Audience reaction suggests Demna’s gamble paid off. The screening felt more like a festival debut than a traditional fashion reveal, pulled by a crowd of actors, models and insiders. The Tiger doesn’t tie up neatly; it lingers, inviting curiosity about what comes next.
For Gucci, this is more than a seasonal pivot — it’s a reset. Demna is recasting the house as a cultural storyteller, using cinematic worlds to frame garments rather than the reverse. If The Tiger is an indication, Gucci’s next chapter will be shaped less by runways and more by the imaginative universes it creates. Here, specifically, grotesque, dysfunctionality, and love happily co-exist.
