Being the Ricardos (2021, R)

*Premise spoilers, but this is a biopic, so technically it’s just history.*

While I’d say this is my least favorite of the biopic movies I’ve seen so far this Oscar season, I still enjoyed it. As with Spencer, it probably helps that I don’t have a bunch amount of knowledge of/affection for the subjects, and so I watched the film more as a story than as an accurate (or not) portrayal of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

In 1952, one week’s taping of I Love Lucy is plagued by numerous outside complications. A newspaper has just published a story about Desi’s philandering, a radio host has just accused Lucy of being a Communist, and the show’s producers are horrified at Lucy and Desi’s plan to incorporate Lucy’s real-life pregnancy into the show. With all that swirling around them, the show must still go on.

Like last year’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, this is an Aaron Sorkin project, more weighted to the entertainment-industry side of his wheelhouse than the political side, although politics still plays a role here. Between the Red Scare, “decency” censorship issues, and Lucy and Desi’s respective places as major stars in a time when women and Cuban Americans didn’t often have much power in Hollywood, there’s a lot more going on than the behind-the-scenes professional/personal drama of filming a sitcom episode.

The film mostly takes the one-pivotal-event approach to biopics, but the movie is peppered with flashbacks depicting the earlier years of Lucy and Desi’s relationship and careers, plus there’s a framing device of the show’s writers and executives being interviewed decades later about the events of the film. It comes across a little like the film is throwing every narrative structure at the wall to see what sticks, and the result can be kind of jumbled. By and large, I much prefer the main storyline of the chaotic, scandal-ridden week of taping and think the film could’ve been stronger by focusing on that. Again, I don’t know much about the real history here, but a cursory Googling tells me that, while all of these events happened during the filming of the show, the “one scandalous week from hell” of all three happening at once was a Sorkin invention.

What I really like about the film is some of the ins and outs of filming this hit show, particularly in the depiction of Lucy and Desi’s relationship. The movie does a good job demonstrating why they fell for each other alongside why their marriage ultimately won’t work out. Where the two of them really sing, though, is as partners. I love the way the film captures how both of them are exceptionally good at what they do, not just as performers but from a practical/business standpoint as well. They know they’re making a fun, silly sitcom, but they need the jokes to be grounded in reality and nitpick the writers over lazy gags. Lucy is meticulous about blocking the physical comedy routines and won’t allow a rehearsal scene to be deemed “good enough” before it’s right. Meanwhile, Desi knows how to work everyone from the writers to the executives to the live studio audience, alternately using charm, savvy, and bravado to get the results he wants. And they both make an excellent team, supporting each other professionally—in one of the flashbacks, Lucy is prepared to walk away from her lucrative sitcom deal if Desi isn’t cast as her husband, and in the 1952 section, Desi seamlessly backs up a scene pitch from Lucy, 100% aligned with her without stepping in to fight her battles. I love that, and it really shows that, even if they weren’t well-suited to be married, what they had together was something special.

Before the film came out, I know much was made about Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem being poor physical matches for the people they were playing. Typically with biopics, I’m less interested in how much an actor looks/sounds like their subject and more about how they perform the emotions of the story, but I’ll admit that my lack of intimate familiarity with I Love Lucy makes it easier for me to do that and I understand those who take issue with it; if someone made a Buster Keaton biopic, I’m sure I’d be more of a stickler. And on the physical side, I do get the criticism that Kidman doesn’t match Lucy’s expressiveness, which was a major part of her comedy. Even though this movie is primarily about Lucille Ball and not Lucy Ricardo, that does stick out in the scenes where Lucy is in character. Similarly, I understand the criticisms that Javier Bardem as Desi continues the ongoing trend of actors from Spain being Latino characters.

So, without a clear idea of what an accurate Lucille Ball or Desi Arnaz impression looks like, I’m left with the story, and I think Kidman and Bardem both acquit themselves well there. They play really well off of each other, and I like they way both of them show how Lucy and Desi can command a room. I’m a little more mixed on whether their Leading Actor/Actress nominations are warranted—I’ll have to see where they land when I do my Personal Nominations post later next month.

Rounding out the I Love Lucy cast are Nina Arianda as Vivian Vance and J.K. Simmons as William Frawley. They’re both entertaining and make the most of their scenes, although, with Simmons taking the film’s third acting nomination, I again wonder if it’s really a performance that needed an Oscar nod. I always enjoy Simmons, but is what he does in this movie really one of the top five supporting-actor performances of the year? Some other familiar faces in the supporting cast. Clark Gregg, a.k.a. Agent Coulson, appears as one of the studio higher-ups, and we get an awesome Arrested Development reunion with Tony Hale appearing as executive producer Jess Oppenheimer and Alia Shawkat as writer Madelyn Pugh. Aside from the sheer fun of seeing Hale and Shawkat together onscreen again, both of them turn in really nice work.

Warnings

Language, mild sexual content, drinking/smoking, and thematic elements.