Being the Ricardos (2021)

(Amazon Streaming, April 2022) Nobody ever sees the same movie. No, I’m not questioning the permanence of films as objects or artifacts – no spooky Mandela Effect theories from me. But even in considering unchangeable spools of celluloid or digital files with certified checksums, no viewer brings the exact same set of knowledge, assumptions and expectations to any viewing of any film. Even a second viewing can be a radically different experience. Maybe you’ve seen Being the Ricardos without any knowledge of Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz and I Love Lucy. Or maybe, like me, you have approached it with a near-encyclopedic knowledge of 1940s Hollywood after the full eight-hour TCM podcast on Ball’s life. I don’t seriously believe that too much knowledge can be a bad thing, but it certainly colours the viewing experience in a different way – both appreciative and irritated. Writer-director Aaron Sorkin goes for a compressed biographical snapshot here – picking a specific date in the life of the Ball/Arnaz couple, and turbocharging it with as much drama as could be plausibly inserted in the specific time-frame, even if a few years have to be collapsed in order to do so. We find ourselves on the set of I Love Lucy during a particularly eventful week in which Ball is accused of Communist activities, in which she has to confront Arnaz about his infidelities, and in which she must announce to everyone that she’s pregnant at a time when such things were unmentionable on TV. A rather weak framing device (by actors pretending they’re the real older people we follow in flashbacks) provides historical material and context. Let’s get something out of the way first: Neither Nicole Kidman nor Javier Bardem are much of a match for the real-life Lucille ball or Desi Arnaz: They can certainly act, but the film is not going for close physical resemblance (which is also true for Nina Arianda and J. K. Simmons in supporting roles). Also, Being the Ricardos is definitely, almost obstinately, determined not to make its audience laugh. Aside from brief black-and-white staging of a few of the show’s moments, it doesn’t really try to convey Ball’s gift for comedy as much as her keen understanding of how comedy works. A justifiable choice if you assume that people are familiar with the show (still funny in reruns seventy years later!) or that it doesn’t want to expose Kidman to the task of being as funny as Ball, but it’s still an eyebrow raiser. Sorkin would rather focus on the drama of being Lucille Ball when the cameras aren’t rolling – her professionalism in analyzing what’s funny or not, her sometimes-curt manners, and her complex relationship with Arnaz even through his infidelities. (It’s a measure of the film’s unorthodox touch that it resists the easy impulse of making Arnaz the out-and-out villain for cheating on her – although Bardem’s considerable charisma has a lot to do with that.)  As a big Classic Hollywood buff, I was very impressed by much of the period detail – all the way to having someone play Ann Miller’s legs (and namechecking her on the set of Too Many Girls). On the other hand, I was also able to spot a few details that were strikingly out of place (that anachronistic Stromboli poster bothered me a lot, even if I can guess the thematic reason for showing it). Still, compared to many “snapshot biographies,” Being the Ricardos gets the basics right, shoehorns its references rather gracefully, and does mix its elements well. Sorkin’s dialogue isn’t quite as showy as usual, and I’m always up for more Alia Shawkat. I would have changed a few elements of the climax, but I’m generally happy at how it all turned out despite a few unusual choices, and how much of a rather good homage it is to the Ball/Arnaz couple. But my reading of the film is likely to be very different from yours.