Aaron Sorkin’s ‘Being the Ricardos’ is fine enough, but never dazzles: Review

Being the Ricardos is not Aaron Sorkins’ finest film. It won’t even break the high half of the dozen or so he is written. But the writer-director’s glowing biopic of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz seems like an inevitable Academy Awards contender. The outdated Hollywood backdrop; the self-referential musings on artistry; Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem so sharp they might draw blood — individuals have received extra for much less. 

There’s simply one thing about this lavishly produced drama that does not final. Whereas sure I Love Lucy scenes are burned in our brains, the entirety of Being the Ricardos is miraculously forgettable. It is a good watch, well-suited to households and holiday-time nostalgics. But it surely is not transformative. You will not stroll away with a richer understanding of the couple it purports to seize, nor a very noteworthy cinematic expertise. You may even really feel such as you’ve seen this film earlier than — although that is not for an absence of attempting to face out. 

From the first orchestral flourish of I Love Lucy’s iconic theme track, Sorkin conjures Los Angeles, 1953 with attribute brilliance. The director’s painstaking consideration to element is matched — and, every so often, exceeded — by Kidman and Bardem with their high-wattage stardom. There are iffy specifics (Kidman’s quiet severity, Bardem’s perplexing accent work) but the essence of Lucille and Desi is there, and the chemistry is simple. The pair entertain a magnetic love-hate dynamic, at the same time as they face the best controversy of their careers. 

Kidman and Bardem make pair completely with J.Okay. Simmons and Nina Arianda.
Credit score: Amazon Content material Providers

Instructed throughout 5 days, Being the Ricardos renders a portrait of I Love Lucy’s remarkably rocky historical past by means of the lens of a single episode’s creation. Accusations of communism and infidelity plague the unprecedentedly in style sitcom in a fever pitch of political angling and showbiz gossip. The semi-fictional scandal is a hyper-condensed model of what truly occurred to the tv sweethearts. 

Their battle to avoid wasting the present by showtime drives the film’s motion from table-read to a efficiency in entrance of a stay studio viewers. The scenes in between function a kind of guided tour by means of Lucille and Desi’s extra troubled moments, spanning a long time. Flashing forwards and backwards between the duo’s courtship and their current PR crises paints a zippy portrait of an influence couple on the rocks. The warring sensibilities of the fiery comedienne and her bandleader husband gasoline theatrical arguments that harken to Sorkin’s stage play previous. It is never particularly poisonous (although Sorkin’s own allegedly abusive behavior on units appears virtually excused by his self-aggrandizing rendition of Lucille Ball.) But it surely is compellingly passionate with Kidman and Bardem chewing by means of the textual content like paper shredders being fed outdated scripts. 

It is compellingly passionate with Kidman and Bardem chewing by means of the textual content like paper shredders being fed outdated scripts. 

In the orbit of that charming disaster, William Frawley (a pitch-perfect J.Okay. Simmons) and Vivian Vance (a spectacular Nina Arianda) battle on the sidelines as the discontented supporting gamers behind Fred and Ethel. They have points with one another, in addition to Lucille and Desi. Concurrently, writers Madelyn Pugh (a scene-stealing Alia Shawkat) and Bob Carroll Jr. (an underused Jake Lacy) vie for recognition on set, as head author and producer Jess Oppenheimer (a revelatory Tony Hale) worries over the solid and crew’s collective destiny. 

Via all these characters and conflicts emerge an inexpensive message: Issues aren’t at all times what they appear, even in the picture-perfect world of Fifties Hollywood. It is a ethical we have discovered earlier than — see Pleasantville, Trumbo, or Hail, Caesar! — but with a finer level placed on the absurdity of maintaining appearances in a romantic context.

Kidman and Bardem pair completely with J.Okay. Simmons and Nina Arianda.
Credit score: Amazon Content material Providers

Sorkin’s fondness for overlapping dialogue serves him nicely as an uber-realistic distinction to the stilted speech of the black-and-white sitcom world. Components of the beloved TV present are recreated for Being the Ricardos, but they don’t seem to be performed for comedy. As an alternative, they’re used for example the inner lifetime of Lucille Ball, emphasizing the duality of Lucy and Ricky versus Lucille and Desi. Though, it needs to be stated, seeing Kidman roll round in grapes is decently entertaining. Considerations that she could not “do” comedy show to be largely unfounded.

Nonetheless, for all the fascinating info and intelligent polish, Being the Ricardos never rises to the level of feeling correctly actual. The story would not organically come up a lot because it systematically progresses, with each second of its bloated two-hour and 11-minute run-time including to its already appreciable burden. Being the Ricardos seems to be prefer it took back-breaking work to make — in stark distinction to the mesmerizing ease with which I Love Lucy offered itself. What’s extra, Sorkin makes narrative selections that come throughout as extra structurally integral than emotionally trustworthy, and even the most well-acted characters undergo.

Alia Shawkat steals scenes such as you would not imagine.
Credit score: Amazon Content material Providers

At the same time as day-of-the-week title playing cards drive the “current” story to advance, Sorkin jumps forwards and backwards to 2021 “interviews” with actors enjoying older variations of Pugh, Carroll, and Oppenheimer (Linda Lavin, Ronny Cox, John Rubinstein). They’re requested questions on I Love Lucy as an obvious conduit for narration. But any useful context they supply is buried underneath the weird selection to incorporate them. These moments come off very Adam McKay, if not a bit macabre — and make Shawkat, Lacy, and Hale really feel extra like puppets than individuals. 

Equally, a collection of ultimate act monologues waxing poetic about all the things from being a Cuban immigrant to rising outdated in the limelight appear designed to wrap up a narrative that never actually goes anyplace. Once more, it is fantastically made and good sufficient to observe. But any misty-eyed moments you might need (I will admit, the remaining moments of Lucille pondering her future had me welling up) are trumped by a stale aftertaste. You may like Kidman and Bardem’s Lucille and Desi. But caring about them proves powerful.

“Being the Ricardos” is a visually beautiful stroll down reminiscence lane with no narrative vacation spot in sight.

In the finish, what Being the Ricardos continues is not a legacy of Lucille Ball. Slightly, it is the newest in a string of disappointing biopics about fascinating ladies that fail to seize what made them well-known in the first place. Judy and The Eyes of Tammy Faye really feel like Being the Ricardos’ most evident bedfellows. That every of those floundering feminist flicks had been written and directed by males stands out.

Completely palatable — and, sure, completely a factor it’s best to take your grandparents to — Being the Ricardos is a visually beautiful stroll down reminiscence lane with no narrative vacation spot in sight. Head into it anticipating slightly, and you will get lots. But head into it anticipating something near I Love Lucy, and you will get burned. 

Being the Ricardos is in theaters; streaming on Amazon Prime Video Dec. 21.