Being the Ricardos: Film Review
Nicole Kidman never puts a foot wrong in my eyes and when she faced backlash over her casting as Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos, I felt confident that she would prove people wrong – and she certainly has.
Aaron Sorkin, who writes and directs, has set his story during one production week on the popular sitcom I Love Lucy, starring Ball and her real-life husband Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem) as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, in September 1952. Between the table read on the Monday and the live taping in front of a studio audience on the Friday, the couple has a lot of off-screen issues to contend with. For example, Ball is all over the news because of her alleged Communist leanings, Arnaz is accused of being unfaithful in the gossip rags, and together they drop the bombshell news that she’s pregnant.
It sounds like Ball and Arnaz had the week from hell back in 1952. But thankfully that wasn’t the case in real life as Sorkin has simply squished together three true events into one week for dramatic effect. The 1952 storyline is interspersed with flashbacks showing how Ball and Arnaz met and the early days of their relationship as well as the genesis of I Love Lucy. We also see little snippets of Kidman recreating certain I Love Lucy scenes, presented in black-and-white.
I’ve always loved watching projects that take you behind the scenes of film and TV production so I was very much into Being the Ricardos. The most interesting and exciting scenes were the ones based on the I Love Lucy set, watching Ball push back against certain bits of writing, changing the blocking of a scene or figuring out how to make something funnier. I also enjoyed the recreation of actual scenes, like Kidman as Ball stomping grapes in a comedic manner. I’ve never seen the show so I can’t speculate on the accuracy but it was a joy seeing Kidman in heightened physical comedy mode.
The film didn’t grip me all the time though. My interest dipped somewhere around the middle and thought it was a bit too long and sometimes rather tonally uneven. I wasn’t too sure about the documentary-style talking heads either. The speakers provided interesting anecdotes and tidbits of gossip but these appearances felt weird and unnecessary.
Kidman has been nominated for the Golden Globe and Critics Choice awards so far and it’s clear to see why. She is magnetic as Ball. She doesn’t do an impersonation or Ball’s voice but she focused on capturing her essence and the comedy star came across like one forthright, ballsy gal, which sounds about right. Bardem also does well as the charming Arnaz but this is Kidman’s show, without a doubt.
Their supporting cast deserves a shout out too, particularly Nina Arianda as their co-star Vivian Vance. Being written as an unattractive character is getting her down, she feels insecure and is trying to lose weight. You felt for her even though the focus was on Ball and Arnaz. J.K. Simmons is as reliable as ever as Vance’s on-screen husband William Frawley (they played Fred and Ethel Mertz) and Alia Shawkat stole her scenes as writer Madelyn Pugh. The ensemble is rounded out by Jake Lacy as writer Bob Carroll Jr. and Tony Hale as producer Jess Oppenheimer.
Being the Ricardos isn’t a complete success but for the most part, I found it interesting and entertaining. You must check out Kidman’s performance!
On Amazon Prime Video from Tuesday 21st December