Being the Ricardos

Meandering. Boring. How can a movie about Lucy not have one laugh? For two hours I couldn't stop looking at the horrible makeup on Nicole Kidman. This is your typical biopic. And when you have Sorkin at the helm, it is going to be bloated, overwritten and plodding. There has to be a better one down the road.

This new Amazon original movie came available today, my wife and I watched it streaming.

I suspect there are two different audiences and levels of appreciation for this movie - those who grew up watching "I Love Lucy" and those who didn't. My wife and I are the former, I was 12 when the show ended its run, I have a very clear memory of the TV show, a little from original shows and more from watching reruns. In the hit show, Lucille Ball as Lucy was a bit dimwitted.

In real life Ball was nothing like that. She was bright and driven and often attended too little to the feelings of others. She had high standards for episodes, while her husband Desi was the businessman behind it all. Together they formed quite a team and "I Love Lucy" was one of the most successful entertainment enterprises ever.

This movie focuses on a particular week during which they geared up for that week's episode, but also were hit with headlines that implicated Ball as a member of the Communist Party. Plus Lucille found out she was pregnant with her second child. When the episode was about to be filmed for the week there was a call from J Edgar Hoover to Desi, shared with the live audience, but that was creative license, in real life it didn't happen. The movie also shows some of the formative years, as far back as the 1940s, and the events that shaped her career direction.

Kidman and Bardem are wonderful in their roles and the whole movie is a superb glimpse into what "I Love Lucy" was all about, especially all the things we DIDN'T see during the telecasts. I viewed it again a few weeks later and enjoyed it even more because I had a clearer image of what all was going on. I will likely view it a few more times, it is that good.

Also worthwhile looking up is a 2020 documentary "Finding Lucy", 83 minutes long, now easily available for free viewing on the internet. I watched it also and it helps appreciate the movie even more. After she and Desi were divorced she bought out his share of Desilu studios. She became the boss, she made the tough decisions. To her credit it was during her watch that two groundbreaking TV series were approved - 'Mission: Impossible" and "Star Trek." I'd say she was overall a pretty successful lady in show business. I love Lucy.

IMDB where getting over a hundred votes for a movie by big name Hollywood talent gets the review deleted. Am I right, IMDB? Is that how A listers keep you paying to see bombs like this one?

If this movie wins Oscars, it will be the "Shakepeare In Love" of 2022. I know it and the 119 people who upvoted my review (before it disappeared) know it. So why does it keep disappearing, IMDB?

Bad casting is the least of the problems in this Sorkin polemic on the 1950s. But it is the bad casting where I will start.

First, it isn't "ageism" to be so distracted with an actress's bad plastic surgery that a show becomes unpleasantly jarring. Kidman is so frozen that all she can do is stare into the camera when she makes a point. No matter how well Kidman mimics Ball's husky voice, she looks like a doll wearing a mask. It's okay when she's playing Lucille Ball in a serious script read, but it completely falls apart when she plays Lucille Ricardo. Kidman's own features are so robotically flat, that she looks like she's an animated drawing mimicking a human mimicking a the world's most famous comedienne.

To the other miscasting issue, Javier is an older, masculine Spaniard who lacks the litheness and charm of the boyish Desi Arnaz. The scenes of him doing a very bad imitation of Cuban English with Desi as a young man are as jarring to the Spanish ear as the idea of Jackie Gleason suddenly appearing as sexy young Paul Newman in a remake of "HUD." (He can't even sing "BABALU" for Cuban Pete's sake!!!!!)

Third, Sorkin's standard "rata tat tat" dialogue performed by two people who are both uncomfortable with their accents makes the chatter between Lucy and Desi at times unbearable. It's stilted and uncomfortable. It's also full of exposition, which is the hallmark of very lazy writing. These two people were trailblazers, but they were real people. That Sorkin wants to use them as a metaphor might work, if he would stop beating us over the head with what he wants us to know. He should just let the story, which is remarkable, tell itself.

Last, yes. I know Lucie Arnaz did a video defending the casting and Sorkin. And i might take that the endorsement Sorkin's fans want it to be, if she had disclosed in that video that Arnaz and her brother were principal investors in the film. Kidman may have "crawled up in" Lucie's mother's head, but Lucie paid her to be there.

Who wasn't miscast? Nina Arianda shines as Vivian Vance and J. K. Simmons becomes drunk Bill Frawley. Linda Lavin owns the screen as the aged Madelyn Pugh. They make me really want to love this film, but I don't.

Do you love Lucy? Watch the many "Lucy" series and then read the many biographies written about the two actors. You won't have to waste your time with Sorkin's ego trip, and you might learn something.

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz deserve better than being Aaron Sorkin's object lesson. I wanted a movie about real people, not a sideways lecture from wannabe professor Sorkin.

As TV's "I Love Lucy" reaches 20 million households a week in the US in the early 1950s, it's star, Lucille Ball, is fighting Communist affiliation rumors started by columnist Walter Winchell; she's also fighting with husband and co-star Desi Arnaz about his lack of marital attention and is about to reveal to the television audience that both she and her TV-counterpart, Lucy Ricardo, are "expecting". Although this handsomely-produced portrait of the legendary actress is an entertaining one, there are a myriad of timeline issues and anachronisms within the film which "I Love Lucy" purists are bound to be troubled by. There's also a hurdle in buying Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz (Bardem has Desi's Cuban-accented voice--and his flirtatious charms--down, but he's too old for the role). Kidman fares better as Lucy, proving her naysayers wrong and giving a wry, tough, courageous performance. Lucy's off-camera relationship with Vivian Vance (played by Nina Arianda) is curiously edgy despite reports throughout the years these two were the best of friends; meanwhile, codger William Frawley (J. K. Simmons) is shown to be irascible yet cogent and sharp in place of the heavy drinker Arnaz went out on a limb to have cast. I didn't care for the documentary-like framing device of the show's creators discussing the series in the present day (there's enough flashbacks and flash-forwards happening here); however, when writer-director Aaron Sorkin gets down to business, he delivers some terrifically tasty behind-the-scenes action. **1/2 from ****

I genuinely can't think of a more successful writer in the last 30 years than Aaron Sorkin. For nearly 3 decades now he's consistently written engaging and entertaining scripts that often surround subject matters that don't initially come across as cinematic. Even the films of his I don't quite like as much as others (e.g. Steve Jobs or The American President) are still elevated by their razor sharp, witty dialogue. I also think he's proven himself to be a very capable director as I've loved both Molly's Game and The Trial of The Chicago 7. Unfortunately though not only do I think Being The Ricardos is the worst film he's directed so far, I think it's easily the worst script he's ever written. That's not to say that the writing fails entirely but I just don't think it manages to tell this potentially interesting story in an engaging way.

It's become clear that Sorkin scripts create for great performances and despite my issues with the film overall it does succeed in that area. When I looked into real life clips of Lucille Ball I couldn't believe how well Nicole Kidman pulled of her cadence and mannerisms. It doesn't feel as though she's trying to impersonate Ball rather that she's trying to give of an impression of her while putting her own spin on it. I thought she pulled off the comedic scenes really well and the more dramatic scenes excellently without it ever feeling jarring. I also really like Bardem's performance here, he has great chemistry with Kidman and I really felt that he pulled of all aspects of Desi Arnaz really well. I've never really seen him give a performance like this before and I'd loved to see him play more characters like this in future. Since the film is ultimately about these two characters the supporting characters don't really get given much but I would say the cast as a whole all did the best job they could with what little they had.

I think the film does also have a good sense of humour to it. All the funny lines and gags feel as though they come directly from the 50's sitcoms that the script is clearly trying to mimic and it's pulled off really well. I think my favourite aspect of Being The Ricardos is its examination into of the production of I Love Lucy. It's really fascinating to see the work that went into these episodes down to the smallest detail and I think anyone whose interested in film from any era will get a kick out of that part of this movie. I liked the technique of switching to black and white for the scenes set within the sitcom and it was one of the few things that made the film feel more alive than it otherwise was.

To my utter surprise the biggest thing holding back this film was Aaron Sorkin himself, as both a writer and a director. I think he's transitioned into directing his own dialogue very well and I honestly think he was snubbed of a Best Director nomination at the Oscars last year. I think his work as a director has been unfairly maligned by many but I just didn't think there was anything special about his work behind the camera in this film. It's not that it's poorly helmed just that there wasn't really any energy to it. In fact, my biggest issue here is that lack of energy overall. Despite centring around comedians I didn't think there was any life to this script whatsoever and it felt far too self serious for its own good. The script makes a point of saying how much a threat Lucille Ball faces during this week of production but I never once felt that on screen. It just felt as though I was being told to care rather than actually being given any reason to. I also don't think that dialogue was up to Sorkin's usually standard. A common critique of his work is that his dialogue can sound overwritten and I have to say this film is the first time I've agreed. Too often it felt like words that were written rather than genuine conversations between people and I don't think I could quote a single line after only having seen it a day ago.

I suppose my biggest disappointment with Being The Ricardos is that it just didn't make me feel anything. I never once felt engaged and I didn't think any of the tension or personal stakes that Sorkin was trying to set up came across successfully on screen. Kidman and Bardem are great and it's not without its interesting aspects but there's just very little that's impressive about this film. Even those Sorkin films I don't like as much I still return to every once in a while but I couldn't ever see myself watching this again. Having said all that though 1 weak script in an otherwise completely impressive 30 year career is not a bad average to have and I'll still be excited for whatever his next project ends up being whether he directs it himself or not.

6.3/10 - C+ (Middling)