Despite being concentrated on “one critical production week of their groundbreaking sitcom I Love Lucy,” Aaron Sorkin’s latest attempt to show us how clever he is in all of his dick-swinging, dialogue-centric glory somehow manages to do too much at once. Or at least tries to do too much at once. Although we’re meant to be focused on the aftermath of Walter Winchell declaring Ball as a communist on his show (big deal treason back in the day, as opposed to common sense in the present), Sorkin quickly incorporates other dramas into the fray, most notably Desi’s penchant for cheating on her. It’s something he denies vehemently throughout the “biopic,” only to finally be caught red-handed (no commie pun intended) by Lucy in the end.
Perhaps because “enough time” has gone by for the present-day audience to forget details and specifics about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Sorkin felt more comfortable approaching the story with a “taking liberties” angle, even if Lucie Arnaz was around to supposedly guide and sanction some of the narrative, subsequently calling the final product “amazing.” And maybe it wouldn’t have even made any difference with Cate Blanchett in the role, as she was initially intended to be, for both she and Kidman have pretty much the same “plastic surgery face.”
As the narrative unfolds at Sorkin’s usual frantic pace, at first, Lucy and Desi believe they might be in the clear because Winchell gives the report as a “blind” item. In the movie, it all goes down while Lucy and Desi are meant to be having make-up sex when they hear on the radio, “The most popular of all television stars was confronted with her membership in the Communist Party.” Desi tries to offer that maybe they’re talking about Imogene Coca. Lucy balks, “Fuck you, they were not talking about Imogene Coca.” In reality, Lucy was at home with her two kids listening to the radio and thought, indeed, that Winchell must have been talking about Coca. Surely, it couldn’t be a reference to her own political leanings, for which she had been recently cleared by the House Un-American Activities Committee and the FBI.
“Cleared” for what, exactly? In 1936, Ball had “checked a box,” as Being the Ricardos positions it (though she actually wrote out the word “Communist,” just so there could be no confusion during the witch hunts later on), that declared her allegiance to the same party as her grandfather, Fred C. Hunt. Something that came back to haunt her as America became obsessed with the Cold War capitalism vs. communism (a.k.a. U.S. vs. Russia) tensions that cropped up almost immediately after WWII. Ball explained to the committee how her “Communist affiliation” came about in her testimony with a line Sorkin uses for Ball to say to the network guy, Howard Wenke (Clark Gregg). Thus, Lucy’s remark, “In those days, that was not a big, terrible thing to do. It was almost as terrible to be a Republican in those days” is repurposed as, “Back then, it wasn’t considered much worse than being a Republican.” Kind of like it is again now.
Nonetheless, she was targeted by the news media outlets for her supposed “ties.” After all, the country was still bloodlusting after its Ethel (not Mertz) and Julius Rosenberg paranoia, and the government was still looking to be sated with more fresh treason. With the Rosenbergs’ execution in July of 1953 being a more distant memory at the dawn of fall, the nation turned its eyes to Lucy in September of ‘53. And yet, for whatever reason, Sorkin chose to set the stage in what would be January of 1952, when the twenty-second episode, “Fred and Ethel Fight,” was filmed (though they call it the thirty-seventh in the movie). Perhaps because the episode was rather prosaic compared to others, Sorkin homed in on it to heighten Lucy’s obsessiveness with needing to perfect every moment. To compensate as much as possible for the accusation being levied against her even though she assumed the worst was over. In actuality, Desi made his grand speech about Lucy not being a commie (which, no, didn’t also include a call from J. Edgar Hoover to the live studio audience) before the September 11th taping of the sixty-eighth episode, “The Girls Go Into Business.” As far as episodes go, not very memorable either, but perhaps less easy to nitpick for things like Lucy surely being able to hear Ricky “sneak up” behind her at the beginning of the episode.
As for this universe’s director of “Fred and Ethel Fight,” which Sorkin cites as Donald Glass, it was actually Marc Daniels, who directed most episodes of the show, including “Fred and Ethel Fight,” until William Asher and then James V. Kern took over the mid- and later seasons. For no ostensible reason, this is just one of many changes Sorkin seems to arbitrarily make, including shifting the events surrounding Ball’s public communist accusation from ‘53 to ‘52. And then there is, presumably for dramatic effect, her also opting to mention to the writers the same week that she’s pregnant and that they need to adjust the show accordingly so it can go on without interruption. Something totally unheard of back in the day, and just one of many instances of how I Love Lucy blazed the trail for all subsequent sitcoms. With Desi Arnaz Jr. born on January 19, 1953, however, Lucy forewarning her trio of writers, Jess Oppenheimer (Tony Hale), Madelyn Pugh (Alia Shawkat, rejoining her Arrested Development costar) and Bob Carroll Jr. (Jake Lacy), at this particular moment doesn’t quite work for the timeline. And yet, what does work for Sorkin is being sure to point out that Lucy’s pregnancy pushes back the potential for having the famed grape-crushing scene in Italy sooner in the series. As Madelyn describes the potential scenario, it’s yet another instant during which we’re meant to appreciate Lucy’s comedic genius because she can envision the scene in her mind’s eye.
But Madelyn isn’t quite so convinced of Ball’s full-tilt genius when the subject of Lucy Ricardo’s constant infantilization comes up. Ball, defensive of her character’s “cleverness,” points out that she always comes up with a way to overcome an obstacle. Madelyn counters that said obstacle is usually trying to get her husband’s permission. This kind of conversation, to be sure, would have been far too ahead of its time, and there was never any way Lucy was going to get more “avant-garde” than she already was with regard to gender politics. And, of course, let us not forget this is the show that featured a woman being gleefully spanked by her husband almost every time she did something wrong. If Sorkin was going to opt to pack in every political aspect of the show, one wonders why not that, to boot?
Like revealing how the sausage is made, in a sense, Sorkin focuses heavily on the carnal desire Lucy had for Desi, which is meant to serve as some kind of an excuse for why she might put up with his lecherous behavior for other women as well. Apart from, well, her unwavering love for him. In fact, Being the Ricardos establishes that Lucy was well-aware of his reputation from the get-go, when they first met on the set of the uncannily named Too Many Girls. Provided as yet another flashback sequence Sorkin relies upon to get us out of what the premise led its viewer to believe was a narrative contained within this “critical production week.” Another tactic that makes the film more jarring than well-structured is Sorkin’s use of the talking heads method to show us the writers when they’re older, reflecting back on the intensity of the show–and Madelyn herself noting that Ball once had a chance to be a serious actress before the studio essentially aged her out and told her to try radio.
As for Kidman, whose acting schedule of late comes across as being almost as breakneck as Ball’s, she seems to be coasting through her performance for the most part, despite the inevitable praise that’s bound to come in award nominations. Even though it should be clear that such accolades mean nothing since Lady Gaga is being heralded as some kind of tour de force for her highly offensive performance in House of Gucci. With regard to Kidman’s interpretation of an icon, it’s hard to say if it would have been worse had she actually attempted “donning” the Lucille accent the entire time as opposed to occasionally dipping in and out of it when she’s not reminding us that she’s simply Nicole Kidman with a “ballsier” tinge. As for her Lucy Ricardo drag, well, it looks just like that: as though she’s a drag queen performing as Lucy on the set of I Love Lucy. Again, it’s fairly evident Kidman was cast because she had red hair. But the truth is, there is no one who can play Lucille Ball–and if there was, she would have been better served by the casting of an unknown (like Jamie Auld in Madonna and The Breakfast Club). Then there’s Javier Bardem being slapped in as Desi purely because Sorkin seemed to think, “Let’s get someone who speaks Spanish.” That, of course, didn’t mean getting someone Cuban. And, as we all know, Cuba could really use a source of national pride right now.
Another one of the many unrealistic aspects of the narrative is the highlighting of Lucy’s “little rapport” with William Frawley (J. K. Simmons), who is presented as a paternal, curmudgeonly presence more than the outright asshole he was. And while Lucy might have been closer to Vivian Vance (Nina Arianda), who was, yes, very sensitive about her weight (causing numerous fluctuations as the seasons wore on) and how they wanted to make her look for the sake of portraying the frumpy character of Ethel more realistically, this in and of itself could serve as the subject of an entire movie (someone please cue the pitch for Mrs. Mertz).
So could Lucy’s obsession with catching Desi in his lies. An emotional landmine that would likely not extend to her getting so openly hyper-confrontational with Bill and Viv as she tells them in the middle of the night on set, “It’s like a story you would read a little girl. A witch puts a curse on a woman: she’ll be adored by the man she loves, but only as long as she stays on this patch of ground.” And yes, the entire reason Lucy was willing to pitch My Favorite Husband to CBS as a TV show translated from a radio show was because she wanted to make one key condition for doing it: bringing her own husband on with her. For her, it was the only thing that could save her marriage because it would allow her to be closer to Desi all the time, therefore, in her estimation, keep him from philandering. She underestimated the wiliness of his Cuban dick.
“How would you like to be separated from me for three whole days?” Lucy asks in earnest during the opening of “Fred and Ethel Fight,” an episode that takes on a double meaning. For in response to that question, Ricky’s expression turns to one of delight, just as Desi’s would if he didn’t have to put on his own separate show about not cheating on Lucy. The episode itself features the description: “The Mertzes have a fight, and Lucy makes an attempt to patch up their marriage. In the end, it is not their marriage that is in trouble, it is her own.” The same went for her marriage to Desi, which she could never quite salvage unless it was for the sake of the show. Which is why, as the final title card is sure to “poetically” remark, “On March 3, 1960, Lucy filed for a divorce from Desi. It was the morning after their final performance together.” Naturally, we’re meant to further infer that their entire marriage was primarily a performance. One that Lucy appeared more committed to than Desi.
While one can understand a certain amount of revisionist history (but usually only if it’s coming from Ryan Murphy), how can we be made “privy” to this monumental, make-or-break instant in Lucy and Desi’s lives only for Sorkin to exclude the most iconic statement of all regarding Lucy being branded a Red: “Now I want you to meet my favorite wife, my favorite redhead. In fact, that’s the only thing red about her. And even that’s not legitimate…” But no, that line is scrapped altogether, and we can instead turn to it in another “50s movie” (set, specifically, in 1953–you know, when Lucy was actually publicly accused of being a commie), Mona Lisa Smile, to hear it from Marcia Gay Harden as Nancy Abbey quoting it. And so, with all of this in mind, what does Being the Ricardos really offer to fans except the headache involved in trying to set the record straight? Jess Oppenheimer states many times throughout the film, “Here’s what you gotta understand” and “What you all have to understand is this–here’s what you have to understand…” Well, what you “gotta understand” is that Being the Ricardos, for all its posturing, manages to reduce the very complex lives of Lucy and Desi–and the show that changed pop culture forever–into little more than a soap opera with expensive wigs. What’s more, one fails to see how Sorkin is the person fit to tell this story, Bardem–a Spanish man–fit to play a Cuban or Kidman–mostly relying on her usual shtick rather than truly embodying Lucy–fit to play Ball (apart from her red hair).
If this were a less politically correct era, like the 50s itself, one could easily write the movie off as: Being Retardo. And certainly adding nothing to the rich nuances of what we know about Lucy and Desi already from Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie. During which Lucie Arnaz commented, “There was a film that came out around the same time [presumably, Lucy and Desi: Before the Laughter] I was looking at the tapes. It exploited their worst faults, and it didn’t explain much about them as people. It didn’t even get the history right of the I Love Lucy shows being created. And I thought there must be a better way, there must be a way to show these two people, and be more realistic and have more fun watching it.”
