Being the Ricardos (2021) Movie Review

As a massive fan of the television show I Love Lucy as well as Lucille Ball in general, I was very eager to see Being the Ricardos. I will admit, when I first heard who had been cast to play Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz I was a bit shocked. Javier Bardem looks nothing like Desi and Nicole Kidman seemed like an odd choice for Lucille Ball. But I had doubted others during this award season (mainly Kristen Stewart in Spencer) and had been proven wrong so I wanted to enter into this viewing with an open mind.

Being the Ricardos jumps into a time fraught with tension for Lucy and Desi. They are in the midst of filming a season of I Love Lucy, the hit television show that skyrocketed them both to super stardom. They’re thrown for a loop when Lucy is accused of being a Communist. She had, at some point in the 1930’s, checked the box for the Communist Party as a tribute to her grandfather who helped raise her. When she did this, the Communist Party was much different than what it evolved to be during the McCarthy era. The story of Lucy being a Communist broke and the major players in the film scramble to fix what could very well be the scandal that ends things for the I Love Lucy show. Meanwhile, Lucy is dealing with rumblings of Desi cheating and magazines splashing his affairs on every page as well as announcing she is pregnant which will undoubtedly effect the show as well.

What made Being the Ricardos fun was seeing the dynamics between Lucille, Desi, Vivian Vance AKA Ethel, and William Frawley AKA Fred. Vance and Frawley famously did not get along well and seeing that played out on screen was fantastic. We also get a look at the magnificent writing team that made I Love Lucy the funniest show on television. Madelyn Pugh (Alia Shawkat), Bob Carroll (Jake Lacy), and Jess Oppenheimer (Tony Hale) were the trio that kept things running and came up with zany situations to put Lucy in that were hilarious. With the tremendous amount of pressure each member of the team was under to churn out the hit television show, it’s amazing they could think of anything funny to write at all.

Being the Ricardos is fraught with tension from multiple different angles and writer and director Aaron Sorkin weaves the competing storylines together with ease. Kidman won me over eventually as Lucille Ball. Her voice was just about perfect and Sorkin makes it so that she doesn’t really have to be funny, which is convenient. In real life, Ball was a touch more serious than the comedic Lucy most people saw on the television show. She knew how to be funny, but she also knew how to be direct to get what she wanted. Kidman does impressively well and is generally believable as the more hard nosed Ball.

I had a harder time believing Bardem as Desi, mainly because he looks absolutely nothing like Arnaz. His voice and accent were pretty spot on but the resemblance really ended there. He didn’t have Desi’s aura at all and even his interactions with Kidman seemed a little forced. This isn’t entirely Bardem’s fault. It’s clear he was miscast because they felt a big name was needed. But I think someone who wasn’t an established star could have played Desi better or at least looked more like him. Nina Arianda was pleasant as Vance but didn’t have as much screen time as you would’ve liked. J.K. Simmons did well as the curmudgeonly Frawley and nailed his interactions with Arianda. They were a truly believable duo, sharing great chemistry on the show while loathing each other behind the scenes.

Sorkin is usually a prolific storyteller infusing his scripts with witticisms and allegories galore. Unfortunately his magic wanes with Being the Ricardos. Perhaps he attempted to tackle too many storylines at once. Or perhaps he couldn’t firmly grasp the dynamics at play with Ball, Arnaz, and the cast and crew of I Love Lucy. Whatever the issue, Sorkin falls short with his latest effort. Being the Ricardos isn’t a bad movie, it just could have been better. 

You’ll like this movie if:
1. You love I Love Lucy
2. You are interested in the behind the scenes story of Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz
3. You like stories about complicated marriages