Shocking personal accusations, a political smear, and cultural taboos threaten the relationship between Hollywood power couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
This film has been touted all over film sites and social media as THE film to watch for Oscar nominations and even Oscar-winning performances by the two leads, Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem. The setting takes place during a week in the lives of Lucille Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz, one which would, seemingly, tear both their professional and personal lives apart. Walter Winchell has announced on his radio show that Lucille Ball is a communist and pictures of her Latin Lothario with one beauty and then another on his arm keep showing up in the media as well. She’s being double-tagged, for sure. All this while attempting the necessary day-to-day preparations for their Friday “I Love Lucy” television show. Oh, and add to that a new writer for the show that Lucy doesn’t trust as funny and Vivian Vance losing weight and becoming too shapely to suit Ball as her straight gal, Ethyl Mertz.
Let’s just say this is a very looooong week. First, there’s Nicole Kidman, a very accomplished actress but too long in the tooth to play Ball at the age she is in the film. Kidman is 54, Ball was still having babies. But, I notice, Kidman has nary a wrinkle or fold of age in her face. Okay, wealthy celebrities have access to the best plastic guys but as I look closer in every scene, her face doesn’t look like one that has had very good surgery as much as she seems to be wearing a mask of some sort. Her face doesn’t move. That’s a creepy distraction but her characterization of the well-known, well-documented Ball is a bit like the face mask. It’s stiff, underdone, and presents not the firecracker Ball was known to be but a thin, fragile, soft-spoken version that doesn’t work, especially given the travails she faces this one week in particular. The other actresses receiving mention at this point as possible Oscar contenders should have nothing to worry about with Kidman’s performance. Like Lady Gaga in “House of Gucci,” both fall short of the publicity that preceded their performances.
Javier Bardem, on the other hand, exudes the confident, exuberant Arnaz, though his physical resemblance to the bandleader is negligible. He commands scenes in ways Kidman doesn’t manage. J.K. Simmons is also enjoyable as the curmudgeon Bill Frawley who played Fred Mertz. His one-liners are delivered like arrows to the bullseye. Nina Arianda as Vivian Vance bears enough resemblance to the latter to be acceptable but fell short in consistency of character. She is just forgettable in the role.
Like many films of late, “Being the Ricardos” is overlong, and I began not to care at the halfway mark, just anxious for the denouement to arrive. Too much talking, not enough doing and moving on. Oh, and denouements should be in the body of the film, not explained in notes after the final scene. All in all, a film I had looked forward to seeing, unfortunately, proved a disappointment to this dyed-in-the-wool Ball/Arnaz duo. Given the wealth of material provided by the two main subjects of “Being the Ricardos,” I have just one question: what happened?
In Select Theaters Friday, December 10th,
and on Amazon Prime Video Tuesday, December 21st
