KIDMAN NOT SHORT SIGHTED AT ALL

LUCY AND DESI FINALLY ARRIVE HOME SWEET HOME

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Nicole Kidman puts on the face of iconic sitcom star Lucille Ball in the biopic Being the Ricardos (2021).

Director Aaron Sorkin provides a sophisticated back story behind the making of the popular 179 episodes that first began airing on October 15, 1951 and quickly earned 60 million television viewers per episode.

Desi Arnaz, played by Javier Bardem, provides the straight man next to the slapstick and physical comedy of his television wife, Lucille. In real life, Arnaz and Ball developed the major television production studio, Desilu Studios, as true to life married television stars. 

Sorkin shows how the sitcom was produced while going behind the scenes to unpack the real life superstar marriage.

Being the Ricardos takes place in the week following Ball’s testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities which investigated the connections between Hollywood stars and the Communist Party. Stars could quickly become blacklisted within the studio system and a fall out of favor with the television public after giving testimony for the committee.

Kidman and Bardem show how the production of the sitcom continued while waiting for the public verdict that could end their careers.

Sorkin writes the script in several overlapping layers that compel the narrative forward almost effortlessly. The top layer is the production of the sitcom, with the next layer the personal relationship of the two married stars assuming more and more of an executive role in the production.

Teressa Hill, the head of hair, and Ana Lozano, the face of makeup, move Kidman and Bardem very close to the appearance of Lucy and Desi, in a way that is difficult to describe in words.

Bardem shows a gift for the musical as well, playing the Cuban band leader Arnaz who can sing, dance and play, as well as MC the crowd.

Kidman portrays Ball as shaping a lot of the comedy into the scripts’ final form, although working closely with the show’s writers.

Nina Arianda plays costar Vivian Vance and J.K. Simmons plays William Frawley, who played the married television couple Ethel and Fred Mertz living in the same apartment building and regularly stopping by to visit the Ricardos during episodes.

Simmons starred as the managing newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson who gives Peter Parker freelance photography work in the Spiderman Trilogy, starring Tobey Maguire as Spiderman.

Sorkin provides a microscopic detail to the lives of the television icons by focusing on a time when real life threatened to tear apart everything Ball and Arnaz had created.

While the script deserves full marks in providing the basic storyline and then layering on one complexity after another, the linear narrative rarely leaves the confines of the 1950s television studio. Sorkin refers back to the film time the week before filming began only through dialogue.

Cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth maintains the dark tone and atmosphere of the studio production storyline when the camera occasionally strays off the lot and visits the Ricardos at home.

Kidman convincingly takes on the comedian’s on screen persona as well as a back lot assertiveness by changing her voice to that of a chronic cigarette smoker, and then, as already mentioned, somehow bringing her eyes closer together at the center. Kidman also adopts the body language and hand gestures of Ball.

Kidman has that rare ability to transform into biopic characters, previously convincingly portraying such iconic public figures as Gretchen Carlson in Bombshell (2019) costarring Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie, and then Grace Kelly in Grace of Monaco (2014) costarring Tim Roth, and also portraying Virginia Woolf in The Hours (2002) costarring Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore.

Being the Ricardos is streaming on Amazon Prime.