Anytime Aaron Sorkin writes or directs a movie, I know it’s at least going to be okay, if not good. I know the dialogue is going to be fantastic because there’s nobody better at writing dialogue and that’s certainly what we got with Being the Ricardos. Aaron Sorkin’s latest project is taking on a biopic about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz during a very chaotic week of the I Love Lucy Show. It’s no small task to take on a project about Lucille Ball and what a comedic genius she was. It is certainly no small task to play the character as Nicole Kidman brilliantly did. Admittingly, I was not a fan of her casting, but by the end of the movie, her performance grows on you and you realize that she does a fantastic job, especially with the physical comedy. I can’t say that it’s a perfect movie and any great director would have their work cut out for them with a project about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, but Aaron Sorkin delivers a signature writing and directing performance that do the characters justice, especially with all the behind the scenes stories that we have only heard about and sometimes chalked up to rumors. I knew this film would be at least entertaining because Aaron Sorkin wrote it, but I honestly didn’t expect much from the film and I must say, my expectations were exceeded by the brilliant performances of the cast, the fantastic writing, and all the little nuances that went into recreating an I Love Lucy episode… I honestly felt like I was there!
The film isn’t so much a biography of the I Love Lucy show or even Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s marriage. This particular story centers on one very chaotic week during the I Love Lucy run where Lucille Ball was accused of being a communist. In the early 1950s, being labeled a communist ruined your career, today’s equivalent of the MeToo movement. They didn’t even know if that week’s episode would be allowed to air at the end of the week. But you do get flashbacks within the film of how Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz met and fell in love. You do get flashbacks to where their careers started and how a radio show would be the genesis of I Love Lucy. But the real story is how Lucille Ball faced the acquisition that could have ruined her career while also dealing with the first proof of her husband’s infidelity. It has always been widely known that Desi had many affairs and even justified some of those infidelities with “they were just hookers” and didn’t mean the same thing. There are many points in the life of Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, and the fantastic show they created which Aaron Sorkin could have centered on, but it’s interesting to pick this one week where the show and their careers hung in the balance. I think for Aaron Sorkin who’s no stranger to tackling politics in his writing looked at this as the pentacle of their careers because the accusation could have very well destroyed both of them in Hollywood and that’s really saying something considering the I Love Lucy show was pulling in 60 million viewers every week. So this makes for a very compelling story and that’s one of the many reasons you should check this film out.
I will say that the heart of this film is really the brilliant performances. Javier Bardem really does nail it as Desi Arnaz right down to his charisma as a bandleader along with singing and dancing and playing the conga drums. But I also praise the performances of Nina Aranda, who played Vivian Vance and JK Simmons, who absolutely nails it as William Frawley, they portrayed the actors who portrayed Fred and Ethyl on the I Love Lucy Show. However, the most surprising performance is that of Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball. She is not the ideal choice to portray such a comedic icon, especially someone who can do all the great physical comedy that Lucille Ball was known for. Nicole Kidman is a fine actress and there are lots of things that she does well. I’m not so sure that she was the right choice, but I found myself loving her more by the end of the film and especially how she captured all of the facial expressions and quirks of Lucille Ball. By the time you see them actually filming that particular episode I Love Lucy Show, you can definitely see the greatness in her performance, it takes a little while to get there, but even though it may not be an Oscar winning performance, Nicole Kidman should be praised for her performance. Like most of Aaron Sorkin’s projects, it is the performances and the delivery of his snappy dialogue that really drives this film. It’s not perfect by any means, but it is entertaining and will keep you wanting to know more about these characters.
What does it work for this film is I think it’s hard to understand what kind of film it’s really meant to be. What is its true narrative? It almost feels as if Aaron Sorkin was cramming some large story arc from The West Wing into a 2-hour movie. Is this movie mostly about how Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz got together to create I Love Lucy or is it meant to be more of a political statement about how these iconic characters from the 50s took on a communist accusation? As much as I like the film, I found myself feeling like they were trying to do too much. I wonder if Aaron Sorkin is better at writing a series than a 2-hour movie, but then again Molly Bloom and The Social Network are good enough films because it gives you snippets of the characters’ journeys and how it all fell apart for them. We kind of see that happening with this movie. The narrative is not nearly as focused as it should be. Honestly, it feels just like a really good 45-minute episode of The West Wing or The Newsroom and the entire backstory is just extra stuff to give us a full movie. Maybe it really just comes down to the right editing or maybe this is something that should have been a limited series, but the film in a lot of ways is trying to tell too many stories in a short amount of time and that often happens with great writers who take on big stories and try to fit them in less than 2 hours. Sometimes it doesn’t work that way and you need a limited series with four to six episodes to tell a great story. I’ve talked about this before in other reviews. There are a lot of questions that remain unanswered even when they resolve what happens to Lucille Ball and the accusation. A proper explanation isn’t telling us what’s eventually going to happen with these characters by giving us a few snippets of text at the end of the film. Like I said, they’re trying to tell too many stories in a 2-Hour Film. That’s really my biggest complaint. I want to know more, and I feel like it should have been four or five episodes as a limited series to tell everything that they were trying to tell with this particular part of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s life.
However, I’m not giving this movie a bad grade. As I said the performances make this film worth watching on Amazon. Nicole Kidman will completely surprise you by the end of the film even if you still don’t think she is the ideal actress to play Lucille Ball. Maybe there is someone who could have done it better, but that doesn’t take away from how good Nicole Kidman really isn’t this film or the rest of the cast. Aaron Sorkin’s flair for snappy and comedic dialogue is prevalent in this movie, he definitely wrote a masterpiece when it comes to such a great comedic icon like Lucille Ball. He certainly gave the cast a lot to work with to make their performances outstanding. If you are an Aaron Sorkin fan, you’ll definitely watch this film. But even if you’re not and are looking for a good drama about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and it doesn’t get any better than this film even with all the stories being told within it. But one of the brilliant things that Aaron Sorkin can touch upon was Lucille Ball’s work ethic about getting the timing and the dialogue right when it comes to great comedy while showcasing everything that went into making the I Love Lucy Show because its a show that has stood the test of time. This film is not the best of Aaron Sorkin, but it’s not bad. It is highly entertaining and gives the audience a very important history lesson about the entertainment industry. And even though I didn’t see it until the end, they chose an almost perfect cast, especially Nicole Kidman, who really does get a lot right when it came to Lucille Ball and her performance as Lucy. Maybe it won’t win any Oscars, but it’s a film worth watching on Amazon and I’m quite sure you will have to watch it more than once to catch all of the fabulous lines that were written for Being the Ricardos.
