Being the Ricardos

Being the Ricardos

I found this film dull, anachronistic and out and out pointless. Firstly, the casting is terrible with Nicole Kidman trying to play a comedic giant????? Her husband in the film looked more like Ricky Ricardo's father and lacked the swagger to pull off a Cuban bandleader. Lastly, anyone old enough to be interested in Lucy's history, would cringe at the 2021 language used. Profanity does not make a movie edgy...just profane. For me, the movie was a boring waste of time.

Of all the brilliant actors in the world, why choose the worse 'actor' to play the most wonderful, beautiful, talented actor, Lucille Ball. Lucille was funny, Kidman is NOT. Lucille could act, Kidman can NOT. Such a huge shame you ruined Lucille's past. I just hope someone else will remake this film, and choose a real actor.

I loved the series and I appreciate the fine work of Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem. The accuracy can be only a detail in this chronicle of the US TV shows history and, I admitt , I do not know very much about the life of the main characters. But I am satisfied by the ball of stories used by director Aaron Sorkin for creating a realistic portrait of a period. This is the basic virtue of this film - to give a large picture of a time , in its precise details and rich significances. The bad detail - the horrible make up of Nicole Kidman , giving impression of plastic face. Like many biopics , a hommage to an epoque. Intense effort, good acting, nice reconstruction of series scenes and a decent manner to reflect the story of a not just ordinary couple.

I love Lucy is one of the most revolutionary TV shows of all time. Things that we take for granted when watching sitcoms this show created (for instance if they were to do a sequel to this movie it could center around the fact that a rerun did not exist prior to I Love Lucy). Many younger fans may not know anything about the show but I'm old enough to live through a time in which Lucy was a part of a handful of choices on TV, and lucky for me I Love Lucy was genuinely funny. This made the movie interesting to find out about Lucille Ball, the woman who played Lucy Riccardo. The movie is actually a composite of a few events in the life of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz squeezed into a format that looks like a day in the life on a TV show. Being the Riccardos showcases the week it takes to make one episode of I Love Lucy. From a Monday table read to the Friday filming. Inside of this week is added certain highlights that most likely span the entire length of the show. Events like: Lucille being investigated as a communist, Desi's infidelity, and two things that I did not know about, Vivian Vance's contempt with being Lucy's less desirable sidekick Ethel Mertz and the challenges of being Madelyn Pugh if not the first, one of the first women writing on a television show. Nicole Kidman gave an excellent performance in this flick. Its one of these things where I can see Oscar written all over it. She played Lucille Ball better than she played Lucy Riccardo but that may have been the point cause we got some inside of what a genius Ball is (Thank god the only "issue "with this story is that men could not stomach such brilliance coming from a woman and not something like Cliff Huxtable's very big difference from the man who played him). Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz was amazing as well. This is a situation where they could have messed this up trying to do a bad imitation of Ricky Ricardo, but it does feel like Bardem did his research to do it right. Being the Riccardos could be considered an ensemble cast cause even though it centers on Lucille Ball and her husband, its focus on their iconic show met we got a lot a detail that blended in very well without being overwhelming. We got to see a boat load of characters played very well by some recognizable faces. Aaron Sorkin did an absolutely wonderful job telling the tale of the Queen of Comedy.

The main problem with this film is not only its pacing but the story, it's not interesting enough to be two hours long. The second problem I have with this film is the casting, Bardem and Kidman are just not right for these roles at all, I am so sick of seeing the same actors in Hollywood. I am so tired of both of these actors, bored to be honest of seeing the same faces in every movie today. Thank God for television series that continues to show NEW talent. Hollywood is dead. This movie was so full of cringe acting I could not even finish it. Why make this at all, this is basically a documentary with subpar dramatizations of things one can read in a shorter amount of time. The only positive takeaway from this I can say with certainty, is that this would make for something perfect to fall asleep to.

I don't remember Lucille Ball being Botoxed to death and looking like a piece of shiny wax fruit. Nicole Kidman looks like she's wearing a mask...it's a wonder that she can smile without her face cracking. A word to the wise....lay off the cosmetic surgery, Botox, and fillers. It makes you look so much worse.

This new Amazon original movie came available today, my wife and I watched it streaming. I suspect there are two different audiences and levels of appreciation for this movie - those who grew up watching "I Love Lucy" and those who didn't. My wife and I are the former, I was 12 when the show ended its run, I have a very clear memory of the TV show, a little from original shows and more from watching reruns. In the hit show, Lucille Ball as Lucy was a bit dimwitted. In real life Ball was nothing like that. She was bright and driven and often attended too little to the feelings of others. She had high standards for episodes, while her husband Desi was the businessman behind it all. Together they formed quite a team and "I Love Lucy" was one of the most successful entertainment enterprises ever. This movie focuses on a particular week during which they geared up for that week's episode, but also were hit with headlines that implicated Ball as a member of the Communist Party. Plus Lucille found out she was pregnant with her second child. When the episode was about to be filmed for the week there was a call from J Edgar Hoover to Desi, shared with the live audience, but that was creative license, in real life it didn't happen. The movie also shows some of the formative years, as far back as the 1940s, and the events that shaped her career direction. Kidman and Bardem are wonderful in their roles and the whole movie is a superb glimpse into what "I Love Lucy" was all about, especially all the things we DIDN'T see during the telecasts. I viewed it again a few weeks later and enjoyed it even more because I had a clearer image of what all was going on. I will likely view it a few more times, it is that good. Also worthwhile looking up is a 2020 documentary "Finding Lucy", 83 minutes long, now easily available for free viewing on the internet. I watched it also and it helps appreciate the movie even more. After she and Desi were divorced she bought out his share of Desilu studios. She became the boss, she made the tough decisions. To her credit it was during her watch that two groundbreaking TV series were approved - 'Mission: Impossible" and "Star Trek." I'd say she was overall a pretty successful lady in show business. I love Lucy.

IMDB where getting over a hundred votes for a movie by big name Hollywood talent gets the review deleted. Am I right, IMDB? Is that how A listers keep you paying to see bombs like this one? If this movie wins Oscars, it will be the "Shakepeare In Love" of 2022. I know it and the 119 people who upvoted my review (before it disappeared) know it. So why does it keep disappearing, IMDB? Bad casting is the least of the problems in this Sorkin polemic on the 1950s. But it is the bad casting where I will start. First, it isn't "ageism" to be so distracted with an actress's bad plastic surgery that a show becomes unpleasantly jarring. Kidman is so frozen that all she can do is stare into the camera when she makes a point. No matter how well Kidman mimics Ball's husky voice, she looks like a doll wearing a mask. It's okay when she's playing Lucille Ball in a serious script read, but it completely falls apart when she plays Lucille Ricardo. Kidman's own features are so robotically flat, that she looks like she's an animated drawing mimicking a human mimicking a the world's most famous comedienne. To the other miscasting issue, Javier is an older, masculine Spaniard who lacks the litheness and charm of the boyish Desi Arnaz. The scenes of him doing a very bad imitation of Cuban English with Desi as a young man are as jarring to the Spanish ear as the idea of Jackie Gleason suddenly appearing as sexy young Paul Newman in a remake of "HUD." (He can't even sing "BABALU" for Cuban Pete's sake!!!!!) Third, Sorkin's standard "rata tat tat" dialogue performed by two people who are both uncomfortable with their accents makes the chatter between Lucy and Desi at times unbearable. It's stilted and uncomfortable. It's also full of exposition, which is the hallmark of very lazy writing. These two people were trailblazers, but they were real people. That Sorkin wants to use them as a metaphor might work, if he would stop beating us over the head with what he wants us to know. He should just let the story, which is remarkable, tell itself. Last, yes. I know Lucie Arnaz did a video defending the casting and Sorkin. And i might take that the endorsement Sorkin's fans want it to be, if she had disclosed in that video that Arnaz and her brother were principal investors in the film. Kidman may have "crawled up in" Lucie's mother's head, but Lucie paid her to be there. Who wasn't miscast? Nina Arianda shines as Vivian Vance and J. K. Simmons becomes drunk Bill Frawley. Linda Lavin owns the screen as the aged Madelyn Pugh. They make me really want to love this film, but I don't. Do you love Lucy? Watch the many "Lucy" series and then read the many biographies written about the two actors. You won't have to waste your time with Sorkin's ego trip, and you might learn something. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz deserve better than being Aaron Sorkin's object lesson. I wanted a movie about real people, not a sideways lecture from wannabe professor Sorkin.

There is a good movie to be made about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, the power couple of the early days of US television. Being the Ricardos is not it. Writer and director Aaron Sorkin borrows from Warren Beatty's Reds. Older characters reflect on what happened some decades earlier. The events concentrate at a time when Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) was going to be exposed as a communist during the McCarthy witch hunts. This could spell curtains for her hit television show I Love Lucy which attracted up to 60 million viewers. Her husband Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem) fled Cuba because the communists targeted his family. Desi though plans to protect Lucille by making out that her alliance with the reds was an error. The film also deals with Lucille suspecting that her bandleader husband is having an affair. The pressures of making a hit television show and Lucille who is pregnant fighting the executives to incorporate her pregnancy within the show. There are even flashbacks to Lucille and Desi's courtship. A couple so busy they had to grab a few hours very early in the morning just to see each other. Despite the multiple stories. I came away thinking that this was a weak script that escaped Sorkin's usually smart writing. Sorkin tackles the sexism of the television industry. The executives are shocked that the audience at home would think these married fictional characters are actually having sex. The Ricardos sleep in separate beds. There is also racism towards the Cuban Arnaz. Lucille played hardball to get her husband a part on I Love Lucy. I was bored by the McCarthyism story. It did not harm Lucille's career and I wanted to see more on the lasting legacy of Desilu productions. Shows that ranged from I Love Lucy to The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible and Star Trek. The latter two still continue in some form even today. Both Kidman and Arnaz give award worthy performances despite being actually too old for the roles they are playing.