Being the Ricardos

Grade: B-

I Love Lucy ran on CBS from 1951 to 1957, and was the most watched show in the US for at least four of its six seasons. Being the Ricardos, a recent Amazon Original Movie, is a week in the life of the cast/crew on the show. To name a few things that are happening: Lucille Ball isn’t crazy about the director of that week’s episode, so she begins to flex her diva-star muscles and do some “backseat directing.” A photograph of her husband Desi Arnaz and another woman has shown up in a National Enquirer-like tabloid. Lucille is revealing to the writing staff that she’s pregnant, and she and Desi want to incorporate that into the show – whereas the writers want to find ways to sweep it under the rug and work around it, as no character in a prime time sitcom had ever before tackled a topic like pregnancy or birth. And meanwhile, Walter Winchell has dropped a bombshell on the news that Lucille is a member of the Communist party, and therefore might end up being blacklisted. This is a hectic week.

Being the Ricardos is ably carried by two leading performances that manage to remind us of the people from real life while also giving us characters with life and dimensions. Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem as Lucy and Desi take it as far as it can go without going overboard into shallow biopicky portrayals, like, say, Renee Zellweger in Judy. Their co-stars on the show, Vivan Vance and William Frawley as Ethel and Fred, are played by 37-year-old Nina Arianda (Richard Jewell, Florence Foster Jenkins) and J.K. Simmons. Both give us convincing and sincere embodiments of the famous second bananas. Alia Shawkat is strong and memorable as writer Madelyn Pugh, impressively holding her own and then some in dialogue with Kidman. Older versions of her character and a couple others who worked on the show make an appearance in documentary interview form throughout the movie. I assumed it was the real people. It is actually actors playing them, which takes us into mockumentary territory. It’s a fun touch.

Being the Ricardos isn’t a painstaking, systematic biopic, which I was relieved about. It does jump back in time a little bit, but mainly stays with the meat and potatoes of the plot. Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay is toned down from his usual theatrical bombast, and translates with more relatability. This is a decent swim in the biopic/mockumentary pool. It doesn’t over-‘splain.

Grade: B-