Being the Ricardos (2021)

Being the Ricardos (aka Lucy and Desi) review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Aaron Sorkin returns to writing and directing once more with a dramatic depiction of the behind-the-scenes drama of the I Love Lucy show. While Sorkin’s dialogue remains rather crisp, his direction and storytelling are all over the place in this picture. The result is a handful of unique scenes that don’t exactly amount to a unique movie.

Told in a non-linear and even fourth-wall-breaking manner, the film centers on the filming of an episode just before Lucy’s minor communism affiliation came into question amid the McCarthy era. Lucille Ball, played with strong resolve by Nicole Kidman, finds herself struggling to make the show work on her own terms. We watch as she argues the mechanics of certain scenes that could portray her sitcom character of Lucy being more oblivious than she needs to be. She wanted to create a comical character but not one that would be stupid for the sake of her husband to make more jokes. We view her internal thought process of how she plays out certain scenes and the reasons they wouldn’t work. These situations are great.

Not so great are the moments of dramatic tension between Lucy and her husband Desi Arnaz, played by Javier Bardem struggling to muster a Cuban accent. Their dynamic feels a bit off in how their romantic tension builds to an unfortunate split by the end of the picture but there’s little room to let this develop. This is because the film is spending so much time covering so many angles of the show and Ball’s careers and relationships that it has almost no room for characters to breathe.

Further crowding the screen are stand-in interviewees to create this minor mockumentary format, where actors speak about shooting the I Love Lucy as though they were there. This would be fine for a brief introduction but these mock interviews are strewn throughout the narrative and they really take you out of the picture.

It’s such a shame that the film is so messy because it actually has some strong supporting roles. While J.K. Simmons doesn’t quite have the look of the I Love Lucy co-star William Frawley, he does a stellar job nailing the cadence and making the performance his own. It’s also a lot of fun watching her play off of Nina Arianda in the role of Vivian Vance, making their on-screen dynamic even better than Kidman and Bardem. Tony Hale does his best as the eccentric worrier of Jess Oppenheimer and Clark Gregg brings his usual straightforward approach to the scrutinizing studio executive of Howard Wenke.

I even enjoyed the few moments where Sorkin attempts to recreate the I Love Lucy show, complete with sets and the black-and-white format. But at over two hours long, the sporadic pacing makes one wish there was a harsher edit for the picture. Had it chosen a central focus rather than a one wild week of production that occasionally veers into the past and future surrounding it, there could’ve been a great bio-pic here. Instead, we mostly get a few decent performances and a handful of intriguing scenes. It’s a mild reminder that Sorkin can still pen a good script but that his direction still leaves a bit to be desired.