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Hollywood filmmakers making movies about Hollywood is a separate genre in itself. Between recent films like Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Once Upon a Time In Hollywood’ and David Fincher’s ‘Mank’, there is no dearth of homages paid to the yesteryears. But Aaron Sorkin’s latest film – ‘Being the Ricardos’, based on what went down behind the scenes of ’50s sitcom ‘I Love Lucy’ the most popular sitcom in American TV history is something else entirely. Yes, it illustrates the life and times of Lucille Ball played by the wonderful Nicole Kidman and Desi Arnaz played by a perfectly cast Javier Bardem, the most popular TV stars and celebrity couple. It also has a rousing throwback to studio techniques that won the show 60 million viewers. For the most part, however, it’s about Aaron Sorkin, being Aaron Sorkin. Not always a good thing!
Being the Ricardos is based on true events that took place over a period of time. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz are filming for I Love Lucy, a revolutionary, record-breaking CBS show that had viewers hooked to their screens. The pair are great onscreen but often at loggerheads offscreen and in their marriage. Ball finds out that a gossip magazine is about to publish a cover story featuring Arnaz with a woman, implying an extra-marital affair but she recognises the photo from a previous summer where she was also present with her husband. So they get down to make-up sex in their living room only to be distracted with another headline, one that alleges Lucille is a communist. As studio executives gather around in fear of their show being cancelled, the actress is waiting for the right moment to announce that she is pregnant. Meanwhile, Desi plans on making the pregnancy a part of the plot, something the execs of that era would never greenlight. Aaron Sorkin who has written and directed the film takes all these equally interesting events and places them in a single week. Now, that’s a one-pot recipe for a pacey drama right there!
Being the Ricardos is a quintessential Sorkin film with Hollywood drama from a popular moment in TV history amplified to theatrical levels.
There exists a fine distinction between Aaron Sorkin the writer and Aaron Sorkin the director and the former is better than the latter in my opinion. So while we get a tight plot rife with dramatic moments, we also get a structure problem that plagues any visual storytelling when it tries to pack too hard a punch. This is no The Trial of the Chicago Seven, that much one can tell. It revolves around one I Love Lucy episode where Lucille, juggling the anxiety of two news headlines – one that fuels her doubts about Desi cheating on her and another that paints her as a communist and has the potential to end her career and the sitcom. Not one to crumble under pressure, she puts all she’s got into micromanaging rehearsals for the show’s episode featuring herself, Desi, J.K. Simmons’ William Frawley who plays Fred Mertz on the show and Nina Arianda as Vivian Vance who plays Ethel. All the heat from the lead pair’s personal lives boil over and spill onto the set of the show in heady sequences.
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The film is as theatrical as one would expect. It also taps into studio techniques like the revolutionary use of a three-camera set-up that reinvented how sitcoms were made and allowed the live studio audience to watch the show on tape night. But on a whole, the film feels disjointed at best with all its mock documentary-style interviews and the puzzling chronology of it all. Perhaps the director leaned into treating the plotlines like pieces he can claim and make his own and didn’t let it flow organically. I also noticed mid-way through the movie’s comedic elements are surprisingly lacking in humour which isn’t good news considering it is about a sitcom. But amidst its flaws, if there’s that works, it’s the marriage drama and Lucy/Lucille’s story.
Nicole Kidman elevates the film with her magnetic act as Lucille/Lucy alongside a charming Javier Bardem as Desi. Of course, the rest of the cast which includes J.K. Simmons helps a lot.
Nicole Kidman did not come to play, that much is clear right from the beginning. The actress doesn’t necessarily look like Lucille Ball but she nails this stylised version of the late actress. She sells it for sure. As the story progresses and delves deeper into the psyche of Ball who seems to be playing house with I Love Lucy, trying to live her dream of having a home to come back to, the film gets its best parts. Kidman switches between the physicality of Lucille and Lucy like the pro she is. Woven into this narrative is also the struggles of women in showbiz with Alia Shawkat playing the only woman in a comedy writers’ room and Lucille herself trying to push her ideas for scenes in a room full of suits. Not to forget Arianda’s Vivian who struggles with body image issues and side character syndrome. Of course, there’s the other half of the Ricardos – Javier Bardem’s Arnaz who with Kidman creates a marriage drama worth watching. I also have to warn viewers – you are not ready for just how charming Bardem is in this movie. The partners’ dynamic changes between their time as strugglers and as popular stars invited to the boardroom meetings and right into the politics surrounding Hollywood. Watching them on and off set is a sheer delight. I’ll go as far as saying that the film wouldn’t work without the efforts of the cast that make it watchable. The rest of the cast that features J.K. Simmons who is just as suited to playing an ageing actor as he is to playing J. Jonah Jameson in Spider-Man: No Way Home, is also a great supporting ensemble.
Verdict
Being the Ricardos is essentially a starter course of I Love Lucy for the unaware, an initiation into sitcom history. It is also a fairly good peek into what went into the makings of the ‘50s show, an entire culture that precedes situational comedies we watch today. As someone who only got into the show’s history after Marvel’s WandaVision referenced it, I found it to be a fascinating watch. While I’m not the biggest fan of the film, I enjoyed it as a story about Lucille and her life. I also appreciate just how eventful it was but it was a lot of Aaron Sorkin and not always in a good way.
Cover image: Amazon Prime Video
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