The last time we saw Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s life brought to the big screen was nearly twenty years ago in the glossy biopic “Lucy.” Director and Hollywood obsessive Aaron Sorkin brings to audiences a less than glamorous depiction of the masterminds that were Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Not only were the pair of Hollywood moguls, tabloid fodder, intense actors and controlling masters to their staff of writers and caretakers, but behind the scenes they were consistently at war with one another. Whether it was a clash of egos, or two people just too explosive to stay together, Sorkin shows us why the world is still enamored with Lucy and Desi.
Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) and Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem) are threatened by shocking personal accusations, a political smear, and cultural taboos in writer and director Aaron Sorkin’s behind-the-scenes drama Being the Ricardos. A revealing glimpse of the couple’s complex romantic and professional relationship, the film takes audiences into the writers’ room, onto the soundstage, and behind closed doors with Ball and Arnaz during one critical production week of their groundbreaking sitcom “I Love Lucy.”
Director Aaron Sorkin gives us our first glimpse at Ball and Arnaz during a massive lover’s quarrel. When we first meet Ball and Arnaz in “Being the Ricardos,” rumors have spread that Desi is having an affair on his wife. After having a vicious fight in their office, the two reconcile with a less than PG rated lover’s session. This is cut off with the general conflict of the entire film, where Lucille Ball is accused of being a communist by the American press on the eve of filming their newest “I Love Lucy” episode. “Being the Ricardos” is very much in line with so much of Sorkin’s work, including “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.” The man is obsessed with getting behind the scenes of familiar American landscapes and showing us the less than glamorous nit and grit.
With “Being the Ricardos,” Sorkin leads a dynamic ensemble cast and isn’t at all interested in contributing a love letter to her fans. Instead the movie is so much more about the flawed characters that Desi and Lucy were. While yes, they were committed and often brilliant in pioneering television, they were also unbearable, demanding, and cruelly manipulative. Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem are immaculate as Lucy and Desi, portraying two people that are forces of nature with and without each other. The respective stars don’t so much try to capture their exact resemblance so much as their essence and their presence whenever they were in their Hollywood territory.
Behind the seams they were people doing battle with everyone, including themselves, and Kidman especially depicts all as a woman who controlled chaos through seemingly trivial conflicts. What seemed to many like a simple staging of a scene to one of the series’ most notable episodes, was Lucy hinging her entire reputation on comedy that was meticulous, to the point, and—if terrible—would spell doom for her career. Worth mentioning especially are JK Simmons and Nina Arianda, both of whom are fantastic as co-stars Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. As the respective pair, they’re both spectators and inadvertent victims to the madness. Arianda is especially worthy of an Oscar nomination as Vance.
“Being the Ricardos” is yet another fantastic production from Aaron Sorkin; it’s a compelling peek behind the illusion at two forces of nature that ruled politics, tabloids, and the industry once upon a time.
In Theaters December 10th, and Streaming December 21st.