Post by Dracula on Jan 11, 2022 0:12:01 GMT -5
Being the Ricardos(1/1/2022)
Being negative about Aaron Sorkin is fairly common these days but I think the first time anyone had anything negative to say about the guy was when his quickly cancelled TV series “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” debuted in 2006. That show, about the behind the scenes of a show not unlike Saturday Night Live, caused a lot of dissonance with people because it was a rather serious minded show about the making of a comedy series. I actually liked that show just fine but it was clearly a failure among the wider public so when it was made known that Sorkin was writing and directing a new film about the behind the scenes of the making of another comedy show, this time the landmark series “I Love Lucy,” there were red flags but I thought there was some clear potential there. This vintage sitcom is in fact extremely important to me, I watched the “Nick at Night” reruns of the show religiously when I was a kid and its place in the history of television, comedy, and pop culture in general is undeniable: if ever there were a comedy show worth imbuing with importance it was this one. Unfortunately I don’t think the movie really lives up to its potential, in part because Aaron Sorkin seems to have gotten himself a bit too attached to a rather regrettable framing story. The film is structured in such a way as to have a main story be centered around a week in the life of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz while they make an episode of the series and also deal with two ongoing crises: having to pitch writing Ball’s oncoming pregnancy into the series and Ball dealing with rumors that she had communist sympathies as part of the red scare waves, and then intercutting this framing narrative with flashbacks to earlier in their lives.
In many ways I wish the film had lived more in these flashbacks than in the framing story for a variety of reasons but mainly just because I wanted to see more of the history of the show and of these people. I don’t know that I would have dropped the framing story altogether as there was interest to be found in watching the making of an episode while all this is going on but, it maybe should have been de-emphasized. I would also say that this particular moment in their lives was kind of an odd choice to build that framing story around. Ball’s brush with McCarthyism is interesting, but is hardly defining, as shown in the movie it’s something she was able to overcome and move on from without very much trouble. A title card at the end says that (years after the events of the film) Arnez and Ball divorced shortly after filming the final episode of their show… it kind of feels like it would have been a no brainer to have used the filming of that episode as the framing story instead of this random season one episode and then flashed back to some of the events depicted here. That probably would have gotten to the heart of things (namely the tumultuous marriage in question) a lot more clearly. So, that’s the heart of the problem but I have quibbles beyond that, mainly in the casting. Nicole Kidman does an alright job playing Lucille Ball but it’s hardly a stunning transformation. Javier Bardem manages to look decently enough like Desi Arnez, but doesn’t really match his trademark voice at all. And while J. K. Simmons does a good job matching William Frawley’s mannerisms he is a noticeably more slender man than that actor. All in all Being the Ricardos is mostly watchable but is hardly the definitive account of this story that I was hoping for and is a pretty minor entry in Sorkin’s oeuvre.
*** out of Five
Being negative about Aaron Sorkin is fairly common these days but I think the first time anyone had anything negative to say about the guy was when his quickly cancelled TV series “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” debuted in 2006. That show, about the behind the scenes of a show not unlike Saturday Night Live, caused a lot of dissonance with people because it was a rather serious minded show about the making of a comedy series. I actually liked that show just fine but it was clearly a failure among the wider public so when it was made known that Sorkin was writing and directing a new film about the behind the scenes of the making of another comedy show, this time the landmark series “I Love Lucy,” there were red flags but I thought there was some clear potential there. This vintage sitcom is in fact extremely important to me, I watched the “Nick at Night” reruns of the show religiously when I was a kid and its place in the history of television, comedy, and pop culture in general is undeniable: if ever there were a comedy show worth imbuing with importance it was this one. Unfortunately I don’t think the movie really lives up to its potential, in part because Aaron Sorkin seems to have gotten himself a bit too attached to a rather regrettable framing story. The film is structured in such a way as to have a main story be centered around a week in the life of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz while they make an episode of the series and also deal with two ongoing crises: having to pitch writing Ball’s oncoming pregnancy into the series and Ball dealing with rumors that she had communist sympathies as part of the red scare waves, and then intercutting this framing narrative with flashbacks to earlier in their lives.
In many ways I wish the film had lived more in these flashbacks than in the framing story for a variety of reasons but mainly just because I wanted to see more of the history of the show and of these people. I don’t know that I would have dropped the framing story altogether as there was interest to be found in watching the making of an episode while all this is going on but, it maybe should have been de-emphasized. I would also say that this particular moment in their lives was kind of an odd choice to build that framing story around. Ball’s brush with McCarthyism is interesting, but is hardly defining, as shown in the movie it’s something she was able to overcome and move on from without very much trouble. A title card at the end says that (years after the events of the film) Arnez and Ball divorced shortly after filming the final episode of their show… it kind of feels like it would have been a no brainer to have used the filming of that episode as the framing story instead of this random season one episode and then flashed back to some of the events depicted here. That probably would have gotten to the heart of things (namely the tumultuous marriage in question) a lot more clearly. So, that’s the heart of the problem but I have quibbles beyond that, mainly in the casting. Nicole Kidman does an alright job playing Lucille Ball but it’s hardly a stunning transformation. Javier Bardem manages to look decently enough like Desi Arnez, but doesn’t really match his trademark voice at all. And while J. K. Simmons does a good job matching William Frawley’s mannerisms he is a noticeably more slender man than that actor. All in all Being the Ricardos is mostly watchable but is hardly the definitive account of this story that I was hoping for and is a pretty minor entry in Sorkin’s oeuvre.
*** out of Five
