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| Kidman and Bardem as the title characters |
A Review of Being the Ricardos by Nick Olszyk
Distribution Service: Amazon Prime
Year: 2021
MPAA Rating, R
USCCB Rating, A-III
Reel Rating, Two Reels
There
are some Hollywood artists who are so distinctive they create their own genre.
Aaron Sorkin is such an artist. Starting with Sports Night, perfected in
The West Wing, then continued through a series of successful films like The
Social Network and Moneyball, his works feature fast, witty dialogue
often through quick movement, underlined by great themes of politics, society,
art, and all things human. Colloquially, this became known as “walk and talk.” Being
the Ricardos is textbook example of this style; as such, it will inevitably
be a great piece of craftmanship with top notch actors, subtle but hilarious
dialogue, and brilliant directing – this time by Sorkin himself. Yet this entry
feels…sadly empty. It speaks quicky and with great articulation but has little
to say.
Working
on a similar timeline to The West Wing, Being the Ricardos takes
place during a single week in the first season of I Love Lucy as titular
actress Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) faces not one but two major crises. First,
a prominent newscaster accuses her, at the height of the red scare, as being a
Communist. Second, a tabloid accuses her husband Desi Arnez (Javier Bardem),
and leading man of her show, of adultery. All this occurs while trying to carry
out – from script to live production – an episode of America’s favorite
television program. As expected, Sorkin weaves in and out of the three
narratives, unsure if any will be resolved. Lucille stands front and center,
calm and composed, although internally torn. Through a series of flashbacks,
the audience learns of her unlikely rise to stardom which brought her to this precipice.
Considering all the elements, it’s a miracle the show gets made, much less
becomes a hit. Only she could have pulled it off.
The
first major problem that hits right from the beginning is the insane amount of
ego at every turn. From Lucy to Desi to the showrunner to the writers to the
reporters to the executives to the sponsors – everyone is pushing and climbing
to the top with their own agenda. Of course, they are all incredibly talented.
Lucy is one of the best physical comedians of all time, but she was also incredibly
controlling. She sends her co-star a huge breakfast because she is “looking a
little too good” compared to herself. Desi isn’t much better, fiercely loyal to
Lucy but manhandling and threatening everyone else around him.
This
feeds into one of the worst trends in Hollywood right now: demythologizing
America’s heroes. Desi and Lucille were the shining couple of the Golden Age of
television: clean, honest, humble, and loving. Their comedy came from the fact
that – unearth it all – there was a real Christian couple madly in love. They
could joke about Ricky’s Cuban accent because the audience understood they
weren’t racist. They could make fun of Framley’s “girl voice” because trangenderism
was never even a thought. Being the Ricardos would have the audience
believe this was all an act. Everyone swore, drank, cheated, and secretly
despised every aspect of American culture. Modern cinematic portrayals thus
must be crude and profane to be honest. Nothing can further from the truth. While
everyone is a sinner, few pursue it as a profession. It is also far more
creative to explain harsh realities with a modicum of decorum rather than brute
force.
The
one true thematic element was Desi’s staunch anti-Communism, which made Lucille’s
association unthinkable. In her younger years, before she met Desi, she registered
as a Communist out of her love for the working class, at a time when its
horrors were not well known. Desi’s father was a democratically elected mayor
who fled Cuba when the Bolsheviks came and burned his family’s house to the
ground, after senselessly slaughtering their animals. Communism only works as a
theory, never a reality. Lucy gets off the hook in dramatic fashion after Desi employs
J. Edgar Hoover to admit, live on television, that Lucille is not under
investigation. Yet in this moment of triumph, Desi privately reveals he cheated
on her, spoiling the victory.
These
dramatics are intriguing to watch, especially under the tutelage of such fine
writing and acting, but nothing new is revealed. The film ends on a downer with
a small subtitle stating that Lucille divorced Desi the day after their last
show. Considering such information, what was the point? The Ricardos were fake,
and your enjoyment of I Love Lucy was a farce? After the film, I watch
several episodes, including the one featured in this production. I was amazed how
well it has aged, how fresh, sincere, and funny it was. Instantly, I realized it
wasn’t the Ricardos that were fake but the pretentious assumptions of Sorkin
and modern Hollywood. Yes, there were troubles, but in his last days of lung
cancer in the 1980s, Lucille visited Desi constantly. There was real love which
created great art. I don’t sense any love on Sorkin’s part. Of course, everyone’s
talking so fast, it’s hard to know.
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