I went into Being the Ricardos expecting a disaster. The trailer I had seen inspired no confidence whatsoever, and the vibe being projected was hermetically sealed and inert. When you’re telling the story of one of the most gifted physical comedians of all time, you’ve got to convey a very specific energy — a clown with the eyes and instincts of a bird of prey.
Well, as always, shame on me for doubting Nicole Kidman. Despite being saddled with prosthetic makeup that, as a viewer, you never really get past, Kidman digs deep into a part that has all the emotions, and she and Javier Bardem are really good together as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Their performances are a masterful dance that, even when the script feels a little forced, keeps the audience enthralled.
Part of this is the humanizing factor of letting stars of the ’50s and ’60s engage in the kinds of human behavior that network censors and sponsors would never allow in the public sphere. Everyone up through the very first millennials knew who Lucy and Desi were even if they never actively watched an episode, and there’s something comforting about being let in behind the black-and-white TV screen to see aspects of these icons that just weren’t out there unless you had the best Old Hollywood gossip connections. The film’s hook is a good one: the week when the entire I Love Lucy production waltzed on eggshells waiting to see if the national media was going to do anything with Ball’s 1936 registration as a member of the Communist Party. Tensions are high, Lucy has just found out that she’s pregnant, and worst of all, this week’s episode has serious script problems.
The presence of writer-director Aaron Sorkin requires some degree of healthy skepticism — last year’s The Trial of The Chicago 7 demonstrated that he was much more concerned with getting the vibe right than going in for historical accuracy, and that applies here as well. In this particular instance, we’re fortunate that he does have extensive experience being on the business end of running a weekly television show, and there are moments that ring with a verisimilitude that, even if it isn’t exactly what was happening in the lives of Lucy and Desi at that specific moment, feels correct. Most of the involved parties at that time are long dead, and the couple’s daughter Lucie Arnaz endorsed the film wholeheartedly, so set your filters accordingly. As for Sorkin, I still don’t fully trust him — Martin Sheen is not Josiah Bartlett from The West Wing, he’s always going to be Greg Stillson from The Dead Zone. And in this instance, Sorkin’s propensity for speechifying generally works in service of the story. I can’t find fault with the on-screen reunion of Arrested Development’s Alia Shawkat and Tony Hale (as writer’s assistant Madelyn Pugh and co-creator/showrunner Jess Oppenheimer, respectively), or with Nina Arianda’s haunting turn as Vivian Vance.
This is an adult story, both in terms of ribald language and some low-key sexual content — but also because unless you’ve dealt with shitty jobs or relationships unraveling in cheap motels and on luxury yachts, you’re not necessarily going to find that emotional on-ramp. I’m not going to lie: There are moments when Kidman’s Lucy takes on confrontational meetings in executive boardrooms or reshapes a gag on set and you get to luxuriate in a perceptive woman putting people who aren’t willing to do the work in their place with razor-sharp logic, and it is awesome. The perennially jarring makeup has the remarkable effect of never letting you take the performance for granted, keeping you on edge in a deeply nervous space.
Being the Ricardos is a very smart tribute to Ball, who delighted in finding the big emotions you could wring from taking goofy steps on a tightrope above an unfathomable chaos (and who is also unexpectedly great in the 1947 Douglas Sirk suspense thriller Lured). Bardem and Kidman are never anything less than captivating, even when you can see the metaphorical brick wall on the horizon of the Arnaz marriage. But hey, if you want to watch something like a snuff film for a legendary Hollywood marriage, Vincente Minnelli’s Lucy- and Desi-starring The Long, Long Trailer is as cruel a portrait of watching love die as you can imagine.
