Review: "Being the Ricardos"
Tuesday, December 7, 2021 at 1:08PM By Ben Miller
Writer/director Aaron Sorkin is no stranger to historical drama and Being the Ricardos adds to the list. With a deft ensemble and a dynamite lead performance from Nicole Kidman, the film will be an enjoyable time for fans of I Love Lucy and Sorkin fans alike. Fair warning though: If Sorkin isn't your cup of tea, this film can be hard to swallow.
Lucille Ball (Kidman) is at the height of her powers. Alongside her husband and co-star Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem), their sitcom I Love Lucy is the most popular show on television. But in 1953, Senator Joseph McCarthy was on the hunt for Communists within the United States. Word gets out among the CBS executives that Ball was interviewed by his committee. Ball and Arnaz begin to question the viability of the show if this information became public...
To add to Ball's worries, Arnaz is plastered on the cover of a tabloid with another woman...
Other issues arise, including a new director, problems with Vivian Vance (Nina Arianda) and William Frawley (J.K. Simmons), and further interpersonal battles. All of this happens during a single week from the Monday table read to the Friday taping in front of a live studio audience. Will the show and the relationships survive the week?
Being the Ricardos uses a framing decide from the perspective of I Love Lucy writers Madelyn Pugh (Alia Shawkat/Linda Lavin), Bob Carroll (Jake Lacy/Ronnie Cox), and the executive producer Jess Oppenheimer (Tony Hale/John Rubinstein). While the younger versions interact within the story, the older versions recall that week's events like talking heads in a documentary. This structure paints an odd picture of nostalgia and leads to unearned hindsight.
The power struggles between Lucy and Desi and with producers over the show dominate the film. Lucy is the primary creative decisionmaker while Desi controls all the business. Despite this separation, Frawley (J.K. Simmons) notices the potential emasculation of Desi whenever Lucy takes over. This patronizing tone is ever-present. Lucy falls over herself to tell anyone who will listen that Desi is the brains behind everything. Arnaz's virtues are continually extolled and the man is shown as nearly faultless. Meanwhile, Lucy is a savant. When rehearsing a scene or hearing a pitch for a bit, Lucy can picture everything that happens to the most minute detail.
Sorkin presents the conjectures with hyper-realism. Everything that transpired is conveyed as fact, though almost every situation stretches reality. In fact, as Sorkin has admitted in interviews, the three bombshell conflicts within the movie all happened, but did not happen in the same year, least of all a single episode. For a writer and director of self-exalted intelligence, Sorkin has very little faith that his audience shares that intelligence.
Despite looking very little like anyone besides Nicole Kidman, the movie star dominates the film and embodies the ideal of who Lucille Ball was. Kidman has drawn distinct lines between Lucy the character, Lucille the performer, and Lucille the woman. She masters Sorkin's dialogue with sharp wit and impeccable timing. You might never buy Kidman as Lucy, but it doesn't really matter. One day, people will stop continually doubting Kidman's always stellar gift. On the other hand Bardem can't overcome the miscasting. The film overexplains Desi's swagger, charm, and good looks.
Simmons is predictably strong but it's a role he could do in his sleep. Nina Arianda, on the other hand, has a much more difficult role as Vivian/Ethel and does a lot with it. Vivian Vance and Ethel are both characters to be laughed at and joked about. Arianda shines when confronting the reality of the situation though her struggles are internal because she isn't the star. She faces her challenges behind the scenes since the limelight is never going to touch her. Arianda fights off Kidman for best-in-show honors.
Shawkat and Hale both do good work on the sidelines but the four sitcome stars are the only characters the film is truly invested in. The rest of the supporting cast includes small parts by recognizable character actors like Clark Gregg, Nelson Franklin, and Christopher Denham.
Devotees to Sorkin will fall in lockstep with Being the Ricardos. His penchant for rapid-fire dialogue, male ego, and exceptionalism may wear thin on some viewers but the excellent performances elevate the film to deliver an entertaining experience. B-
Oscar Chances: Picture, Actress and Screenplay feel like sure things. Simmons, Arianda and craft attention are longer shots. I was a big fan of the production design, but it's not as flashy as you would expect.
Reader Comments (8)
"Bardem is miscast", I read that, a lot. For what I read, it seems that the problem is he is from Spain, and not Cuban. For f*ck's sake! His FIRST nomination for the Oscar was playing a Cuban poet!!!
Sigh.I'll wait to actually see the film, to see if Bardem's performance is good, bad, great, miscast or whatever, but the fact that there is people complaining about Spaniard Bardem playing Cuban Desi, while no one complained for his Oscar winning role playing an American?
I’m sure Nicole slays the role bc when doesn’t she, but her face is incredibly distracting. I hate to be that guy, but I hope the plastic surgery fad and women feeling the need to completely alter their god-given beauty fades out. A frozen, nipped and tucked face is extremely distracting for me, and it tends to take me out of the story when it’s this drastic. She’s playing one of the most facially expressive comediennes ever, but it seems like she’s fighting against the Botox the entire time.
Also makes being cast in period pieces another huge suspension of disbelief, when no woman looked like that at the time. Of course it’s a movie, but still.
This is not a criticism of women, do you boo, but the fact that as a society we have allowed this to become the norm is sad. I hope women can feel embraced for who they truly are naturally in the future.
@Philip H
I know not a lot of people want to discuss it and i'm not booing you I agree to a point,
I've been a 30 year Kidman fan and am astonished people constantly underestimate her instead focusing on her alleged surgeries but there is no denying how her face is now.
In period pieces it does glaringly stand out the camera doesn't lie and it is for me distracting accepting someone who has had alleged work done and it can take you out of the story and performance,I couldn't get through The Beguiled for that reason alone.
I am sure as always she is great in the role,i'll watch anything she's in,i'm a fan and admire her career choices and her pleasant persona off camera but whether surgery needs to be a discussion point when assessing her acting I don't know.
“A frozen, nipped and tucked face is extremely distracting for me, and it tends to take me out of the story when it’s this drastic” (@Philip H.). That’s why I can’t get the alleged “brilliance” of Gaga in A Star is Born. Nicole, on the other hand, is a different beast: she’s an amazing actress with or without a plastic face. I am still a proud kidmaniac waiting for her Oscar #2!
I have always read that Lucille Ball was a business genius. Desi Arnaz didn’t take care of the business; she did. That was one of the sources of conflict between them. She was super good and ahead of her time at business. He wasn’t.
She might have tried to avoid the prejudiced “unfeminine” label by giving him credit for her work, and to prop up his ego. But is Sorkin re-writing history so that she is only the “muse” and he is the “brains”?
When I first heard of this movie, I thought oh, it’s going to be like “Bewitched” again, where Nicole is partnered with a lead-footed heavy guy, where she needs someone quick and light and mercurial. And why does the story always have to be about her and a male lead, when we really just want to see her?
I first liked Nicole in “Dead Calm” with Sam Neill. Most recently, I really liked her in “Destroyer” by Karyn Kusama. Nicole’s character looked old, tired, beaten down enough for us to forget any discussion of facial change.
Mixed reviews for both Being the Ricardos and Don't Look Up on Metacritic. WOW
Considering the initial positive reactions for both films, I'm very surprised. I wasn't expecting that.
So far, it seems, 2021 is not really a great year for film.
I almost hated Belfast. And it's already overrated beyond redemption. If this wins Best Picture, the world will once again have a point when it makes fun of Oscar.
The French Dispatch is insufferable after the second major story. I wanted to love Parallel Mothers, but it's just okay. Passing has a great opening but I don't care about it after the first 20 minutes.
My favourites of the year as of today:
Dune
Power of the Dog
Lamb
I really enjoyed this one in the vein of the mass appeal but smart talky movies that Sorkin used to be able to write in the '90s. Its much easier to ignore than historical inacuracies when working with this tone than it is something like CHICAGO 7. I continue to have no idea about why he makes certain directorian decisions, but Sorkin felt much more comfortable in this space than CHICAGO or MOLLY'S GAME both which struck as Sorkin being desperate to be a certain type of filmmaker and failing.
Kidman is excellent and I think she and Bardem actually have really great chemistry. They're so sexy with each other, which i was not expecting. The whole cast is really good. It's probably going to be one of the few films from this year's awards batch that I will rewatch.
It's December 22, and I'm writing my opinion of Being The Ricardos for all the people, like me, who waited for it to stream rather than go to the movie theater. Any trip to the theater winds up costing me $20 with refreshments, which, with a certain virus circulating, is just not worth it.
In any case, I would give the movie a B+. Nicole Kidman was quite good, despite not looking at all like Lucy most of the film. I still don't know what they did, but in some scenes, with her hair pulled back the right way, she does look like Lucy. Javier Bardem is more than adequate as Ricky/Desi. The various supporting roles are good too.
Aaron Sorkin plays around with facts and occurrences but that's OK with me. He's made an entertaining movie with some really good acting. There were slow spots, but overall, I'm just happy..
P.S. I agree with another person who posted about Nicole Kidman's reliance on plastic surgery. It bugs me too.