Apresentando os Ricardos

As "Being The Ricardos" (20211 release; 133 ,in.) opens, several talking heads, mostly "I Love Lucy" staff writers, are giving their perspectives on the mammoth show that it was, and the events that hit the show in a one-week span in 1952. We then go back in time as Desi comes home and he and Lucille start arguing immediately, only to kiss and make up. It is "Monday, Table Read", and the show's production staff is gathered to run through that week's script. But dark clouds hang over Desi and Lucille... At this point we are 10 min into the movie.

Couple of comments: this is the latest from writer-director Aaron Sorkin ("Molly's Game", "The Trial of The Chicago 7"). Here he goes behind the curtain to give us a glimpse of what life for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz was like both within the TV hit show, and outside. Not that the film isn't titled "Being Ball and Arnaz", but instead "Being the Ricardos" (the TV characters). Despite what looks to be an amazing production set and a massive amount of other talent attached to this film, I found the overall viewing experience strangely off-putting. I never did buy into Nicole Kidman's role as Lucille/Lucy, nor for that matter into Javier Bardem's role as Desi/Ricky. It all felt so... clinical, and very much 'staged' (in fact, the scenes involving the making of the weekly TV show felt as if it was a theater production). All of this is a bit surprising as Aaron Sorkin's track record not only as a director but even more so as a writer ("The Social Network", "Moneyball", "Steve Jobs", just to name those) is nothing short of stellar, but here the sum of the parts simply doesn't add up.

"Being the Ricardos" was given a limited 2 week theater run before shifting a few days ago to Amazon Prime, where I caught it. I couldn't help but be disappointed with this film. But you don't have to take my word for it, and I encourage you to check it out, be it on Amazon Prime, Amazon Instant Video, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.

As TV's "I Love Lucy" reaches 20 million households a week in the US in the early 1950s, it's star, Lucille Ball, is fighting Communist affiliation rumors started by columnist Walter Winchell; she's also fighting with husband and co-star Desi Arnaz about his lack of marital attention and is about to reveal to the television audience that both she and her TV-counterpart, Lucy Ricardo, are "expecting". Although this handsomely-produced portrait of the legendary actress is an entertaining one, there are a myriad of timeline issues and anachronisms within the film which "I Love Lucy" purists are bound to be troubled by. There's also a hurdle in buying Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz (Bardem has Desi's Cuban-accented voice--and his flirtatious charms--down, but he's too old for the role). Kidman fares better as Lucy, proving her naysayers wrong and giving a wry, tough, courageous performance. Lucy's off-camera relationship with Vivian Vance (played by Nina Arianda) is curiously edgy despite reports throughout the years these two were the best of friends; meanwhile, codger William Frawley (J. K. Simmons) is shown to be irascible yet cogent and sharp in place of the heavy drinker Arnaz went out on a limb to have cast. I didn't care for the documentary-like framing device of the show's creators discussing the series in the present day (there's enough flashbacks and flash-forwards happening here); however, when writer-director Aaron Sorkin gets down to business, he delivers some terrifically tasty behind-the-scenes action. **1/2 from ****

Either I know more about Lucille Ball and Ricky Ricardo than their children do, or their children, being investors in this film, didn't care what Aaron Sorkin wrote.

Of course, there is such a thing as dramatic license - okay. However, this went above and beyond. I will cite a few things here, but by no means ALL:

Ricky and Lucy didn't meet the way as shown in the film. Lucille showed up at a rehearsal to say hello to the director of whatever movie Ricky was doing, and she was a mess from her previous film, all as shown. When she came back another time, Ricky didn't realize it was the same woman. When he did, he said, "That's a hunk of woman!"

Immediately before the filming of episode 68 ("The Girls Go Into Business") of I Love Lucy (which did not include fixing Fred up with a woman), Desi Arnaz, instead of his usual audience warm-up, told the audience about Lucille and her grandfather. Reusing the line he had first given to Hedda Hopper in an interview, he quipped:

"The only thing red about Lucy is her hair, and even that is not legitimate."

Lucille Ball was 31 when she made the Big Street at RKO, not 39. RKO had suspended her when she refused to be billed fourth in a film. Her good reviews for The Big Street brought a better offer from MGM.

What was the deal with mentioning Judy Holliday? Holliday wasn't around, even on Broadway, until the mid-40s and didn't make a splash in film until circa 1949. She was no rival to Lucille Ball.

Jean Arthur and Barbara Stanwyck were sought for The Big Street; Runyon insisted on Ball.

Aaron Sorkin's script is a muddled mess, combining the Communist scare and little Ricky's birth, which happened in two different years. The result for me anyway is that they both got lost amid Lucy's staging of one scene in the show, which was episode 22, not 37.

Also, in real life, Lucille Ball was referred to as Lucille, not Lucy.

Regarding the performances, I thought Nicole Kidman had the voice and personality down flat. As far as her face being frozen, I'm not sure that much makeup was necessary. Bardem looks nothing like Arnaz, so why the pressure to have Kidman look exactly like Lucy? She had the hair, the eyes, the voice, the essence. A little less makeup would have been fine.

I know people say she was miscast because they wanted a lookalike. Debra Messing would have been fine for the "I Love Lucy" part but she is not the actress that Kidman is. Bardem was excellent. J. K. Simmons and Nina Arianda were fabulous as Fred and Ethel. Actually the whole cast was excellent and totally wasted.

IMDB where getting over a hundred votes for a movie by big name Hollywood talent gets the review deleted. Am I right, IMDB? Is that how A listers keep you paying to see bombs like this one?

If this movie wins Oscars, it will be the "Shakepeare In Love" of 2022. I know it and the 119 people who upvoted my review (before it disappeared) know it. So why does it keep disappearing, IMDB?

Bad casting is the least of the problems in this Sorkin polemic on the 1950s. But it is the bad casting where I will start.

First, it isn't "ageism" to be so distracted with an actress's bad plastic surgery that a show becomes unpleasantly jarring. Kidman is so frozen that all she can do is stare into the camera when she makes a point. No matter how well Kidman mimics Ball's husky voice, she looks like a doll wearing a mask. It's okay when she's playing Lucille Ball in a serious script read, but it completely falls apart when she plays Lucille Ricardo. Kidman's own features are so robotically flat, that she looks like she's an animated drawing mimicking a human mimicking a the world's most famous comedienne.

To the other miscasting issue, Javier is an older, masculine Spaniard who lacks the litheness and charm of the boyish Desi Arnaz. The scenes of him doing a very bad imitation of Cuban English with Desi as a young man are as jarring to the Spanish ear as the idea of Jackie Gleason suddenly appearing as sexy young Paul Newman in a remake of "HUD." (He can't even sing "BABALU" for Cuban Pete's sake!!!!!)

Third, Sorkin's standard "rata tat tat" dialogue performed by two people who are both uncomfortable with their accents makes the chatter between Lucy and Desi at times unbearable. It's stilted and uncomfortable. It's also full of exposition, which is the hallmark of very lazy writing. These two people were trailblazers, but they were real people. That Sorkin wants to use them as a metaphor might work, if he would stop beating us over the head with what he wants us to know. He should just let the story, which is remarkable, tell itself.

Last, yes. I know Lucie Arnaz did a video defending the casting and Sorkin. And i might take that the endorsement Sorkin's fans want it to be, if she had disclosed in that video that Arnaz and her brother were principal investors in the film. Kidman may have "crawled up in" Lucie's mother's head, but Lucie paid her to be there.

Who wasn't miscast? Nina Arianda shines as Vivian Vance and J. K. Simmons becomes drunk Bill Frawley. Linda Lavin owns the screen as the aged Madelyn Pugh. They make me really want to love this film, but I don't.

Do you love Lucy? Watch the many "Lucy" series and then read the many biographies written about the two actors. You won't have to waste your time with Sorkin's ego trip, and you might learn something.

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz deserve better than being Aaron Sorkin's object lesson. I wanted a movie about real people, not a sideways lecture from wannabe professor Sorkin.

I loved the series and I appreciate the fine work of Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem. The accuracy can be only a detail in this chronicle of the US TV shows history and, I admitt , I do not know very much about the life of the main characters. But I am satisfied by the ball of stories used by director Aaron Sorkin for creating a realistic portrait of a period. This is the basic virtue of this film - to give a large picture of a time , in its precise details and rich significances. The bad detail - the horrible make up of Nicole Kidman , giving impression of plastic face. Like many biopics , a hommage to an epoque. Intense effort, good acting, nice reconstruction of series scenes and a decent manner to reflect the story of a not just ordinary couple.