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Being the Ricardos
After his triumph last year with The Trial of the Chicago 7, which I thought was the best film of 2020, I would like to report that Aaron Sorkin's latest project, 2021's Being the Ricardos, an up close and personal look at classic Hollywood royalty, was as good, not to say that it isn't worth a look.
This film starts out as a look into the production of the television series I Love Lucy and its stars, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, who made it the most successful television comedy in history. The story begins at the table read (where the cast sits down and reads the script for the first time) for episode 4 of season two of the show, titled "Fred and Ethel Fight". It is during the production of this episode where we find Lucy fighting multiple battles with the sponsors about problems with the script, while she has also been called to testify to the Committee on Un-American Activities after being accused of being a communist.
This one week in the life of Lucy and Desi was rife with enough material for a really great movie, but Sorkin tries to cover a bit too much territory here, going back to the stars' first meeting on the set of Too Many Girls, through Lucy's less-than-stellar career as a B movie queen, through her multiple battles to simultaneously re-ignite her career and save her marriage by making Desi believe he was in charge of I Love Lucy, which only came to fruition because Lucy told CBS she wouldn't do it without Desi.
The movie gets less interesting as it moves away from season 2 episode 4, but a lot of stuff about Lucy's extraordinary career are given screentime here. Lucy's frustration with her movie career, her never-ending paranoia about Desi's infidelity, the antagonism between Vivian Vance and Williams Frawley, and Lucy's constant battle to make Desi look like the boss on the set of I Love Lucy, though nothing could have been further from the truth. Loved all the scenes of Lucy trying to get the opening scene of the episode done the way she wanted and her and Desi's battle to get Lucy's pregnancy written into the show.
Sorkin put a lot of care and research into this production, I just wish he had concentrated a little more on this specific week as it is setup because it becomes obvious pretty quickly that everything that happens in this movie did not happen during the shooting of episode 4, season 2.
As for the performances, Oscar winners Nicole Kidman and Jarvier Bardem work extremely hard in the starring roles, but I never see Lucy and Desi onscreen, I always know I'm watching Kidman and Jarvier, who bring no humor to the performances, not that this film is a comedy, but a movie about Lucy and Desi should provide some laughs. The only real laughs come from Oscar winner JK Simmons as William Frawley, who deserves an Oscar nomination. Tony Hale's performance as Jess Oppenheimer is Oscar-worthy as well, but these performances don't cover up the fact that Sorkin's screenplay is a little overstuffed and makes this docudrama a little labored.
After his triumph last year with The Trial of the Chicago 7, which I thought was the best film of 2020, I would like to report that Aaron Sorkin's latest project, 2021's Being the Ricardos, an up close and personal look at classic Hollywood royalty, was as good, not to say that it isn't worth a look.
This film starts out as a look into the production of the television series I Love Lucy and its stars, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, who made it the most successful television comedy in history. The story begins at the table read (where the cast sits down and reads the script for the first time) for episode 4 of season two of the show, titled "Fred and Ethel Fight". It is during the production of this episode where we find Lucy fighting multiple battles with the sponsors about problems with the script, while she has also been called to testify to the Committee on Un-American Activities after being accused of being a communist.
This one week in the life of Lucy and Desi was rife with enough material for a really great movie, but Sorkin tries to cover a bit too much territory here, going back to the stars' first meeting on the set of Too Many Girls, through Lucy's less-than-stellar career as a B movie queen, through her multiple battles to simultaneously re-ignite her career and save her marriage by making Desi believe he was in charge of I Love Lucy, which only came to fruition because Lucy told CBS she wouldn't do it without Desi.
The movie gets less interesting as it moves away from season 2 episode 4, but a lot of stuff about Lucy's extraordinary career are given screentime here. Lucy's frustration with her movie career, her never-ending paranoia about Desi's infidelity, the antagonism between Vivian Vance and Williams Frawley, and Lucy's constant battle to make Desi look like the boss on the set of I Love Lucy, though nothing could have been further from the truth. Loved all the scenes of Lucy trying to get the opening scene of the episode done the way she wanted and her and Desi's battle to get Lucy's pregnancy written into the show.
Sorkin put a lot of care and research into this production, I just wish he had concentrated a little more on this specific week as it is setup because it becomes obvious pretty quickly that everything that happens in this movie did not happen during the shooting of episode 4, season 2.
As for the performances, Oscar winners Nicole Kidman and Jarvier Bardem work extremely hard in the starring roles, but I never see Lucy and Desi onscreen, I always know I'm watching Kidman and Jarvier, who bring no humor to the performances, not that this film is a comedy, but a movie about Lucy and Desi should provide some laughs. The only real laughs come from Oscar winner JK Simmons as William Frawley, who deserves an Oscar nomination. Tony Hale's performance as Jess Oppenheimer is Oscar-worthy as well, but these performances don't cover up the fact that Sorkin's screenplay is a little overstuffed and makes this docudrama a little labored.