Being the Ricardos

Being the Ricardos is another lousy movie from Aaron Sorkin. I wouldn't call it a misfire because it is what I expect from Mr. Sorkin and it is a little better than The Trial of the Chicago 7. Office politics and the behind the scene machinations of making a television show are in Sorkin's wheelhouse, but the film is over freighted with cultural significance. For Sorkin, each and every moment is the time that tries men's souls. 

Lucille Ball's second pregnancy and her being fingered as a Communist are the central crises of this film with the daily grind of turning out a weekly sitcom as a backdrop. However, Sorkin throws into many other elements. Lucy and Desi's romance and early career struggles are cursorily told in flashbacks. The costumes and production design are luxe, but because Sorkin's gifts are literary rather than visual, the flashbacks have no emotional impact. Sorkin's script makes it seem as if the only significant film Ms. Ball appeared in before her television success was The Big Street. I would advise anyone to check out Ms. Ball's contributions to Follow the Fleet, Stage Door, Five Came Back, The Dark Corner, Ziegfeld Follies, Lured, Easy Living, and The Fuller Brush Girl. 

Sorkin tries to help the viewer navigate his switching back and forth between time frames by having former writers from I Love Lucy, all played by too familiar actors, function as a Greek Chorus as they share their reminiscences of Lucy and Desi. This snarls whatever little narrative drive the film has and reinforces the notion that Sorkin would rather tell us what is happening rather than show us.

The film's feeble jabs at the redbaiting and misogyny of the era seems tacked on rather arising out of the narrative. When Lucy tells Desi to stop gaslighting her, the moment feels like a sop to 2021 rather than an expression of what 1951 was like. Part of the appeal of I Love Lucy was how slight and silly it was. The energy of Ms. Ball, like that of Jerry Lewis, was a release from the grey suited conformity of the 50s. It was comedy, like the drag of Uncle Miltie, that leaped out of the television at its audience. It was antic and contained antics. It was fun for fun's sake that reveled in its own absurdity. Could anyone imagine the self-serious Sorkin evoking this. Being the Ricardos is never fun or funny.

Part of the problem is that Nicole Kidman, one of the most talented screen actresses of our period, is not a natural comedian. She is an accomplished technician, but never the fount of energy and verve that Lucy was. Ms. Kidman gamely assays the iconic grape stomping scene and while the scene screams verisimilitude, it does not achieve the hilarity of the original high jinks. Ms. Kidman has very little onscreen chemistry with Javier Bardem. Mr. Bardem has the body of a boxer, not a song and dance man. He is better as a cop, a thug, or a psycho. My wife suggested Gael Garcia Bernal as a better fit and I concur. I would have like to seen Michelle Williams as Lucy. She certainly nailed the Jersey honk, that Lucy possessed,  when Williams played Gwen Verdon in Fosse/Verdon. Ms. Kidman's accent is intermittent.

Lucy and Desi are watered down here probably because this is an authorized bio with Luci And Desi Jr. listed as executive producers. Desi's philandering is talked about, but never shown. The real Lucy was much more profane and dogged. Richard Burton wrote that she was the toughest showbiz negotiator he had ever encountered. Only J.K. Simmons, as William Frawley, provides the period pungency that hints what could have been. As a fan of I Love Lucy and the damnably kooky The Lucy Show, I hoped for better.