I’ve had insomnia since I was young. It comes and goes, and I’ve found ways to manage or even predict it over the years. It first struck while I was about 10 years old, where I suddenly found myself with a novel issue: lots of time to kill in the late hours while everyone in my home was asleep. Enter, Nick at Nite.
Nick at Nite was an overnight block of programming, running from about 9 pm until 7 am the following morning, on Nickelodeon. Its lineup consisted of the television classics. I Dreamt of Jeannie, I developed an irrational fear of the theme song from Dragnet, and I watched Mary Tyler Moore turn the world on with her smile. But mostly, I Loved Lucy.
Suffice it to say that even in my 30s, I’m old enough to be a captive audience for the latest biopic, Being the Ricardos, which is a testament to the staying power and historic value of a sitcom that aired a full 70 years ago. Being the Ricardos is writer/director Aaron Sorkin’s attempt to peel away at the onion of one of Hollywood’s first and most successful power couples, Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) and Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem). It examines one of the most trying weeks of their lives, during which Ball was under fire for once being a member of the communist party. Through that lens, Being the Ricardos illustrates the rocky relationship between Ball and Arnaz, the way they pushed the envelop of acceptable programming guidelines in the 50s, and the savvy business sense that would eventually give way to one of the largest independent television studios in history, Desilu Productions.
If it sounds like a lot to examine in a week, that’s because a) it is, and b) the narrative isn’t really built to showcase only a week. In that sense, Sorkin cheats the premise – to the detriment of the film, often – and builds a series of storytelling gimmicks around the week in question. The first is a faux documentary with older versions of the production team we see interact with Lucy and Desi throughout the week: producer Jess Oppenheimer (Tony Hale), and writers Madelyn Pugh (Alia Shawkat) and Bob Carroll Jr. (Jake Lacy). These “talking heads” only appear a few times throughout the film to look back on and frame events. Add to that a series of flashbacks throughout the film that show how Lucy and Desi met and fell in love, and the narrative has a few too many tricks up its sleeve. When Being the Ricardos focuses solely on the “present” time period and avoids flash backs and forwards, though, it is at its most effective.
How effective, exactly, largely hinges on your impression of the two front-and-center performances of Kidman and Bardem. So we’ll start with the good news first. I walked into Being the Ricardos feeling like a sucker for the premise but a big skeptic of the casting of both lead roles. With Kidman, I was pleasantly surprised. She might not look exactly the part, but this isn’t a cosplay competition. Kidman’s still a world-class performer, and she’s able to infuse enough anger, sarcasm, savvy, and fear to the part that I felt like I was getting something close to the woman I’d watched late at night in black-and-white decades ago. Even her voice has the gruff, smoker sound Ball’s did. Sure, Debra Messing may have looked the part, but I’m willing to bet she’d have nothing on Kidman’s performance here.
On Bardem, though, I walked in unconvinced and walked out of the theater still unconvinced. Sorkin came under fire for casting Bardem, a Spaniard, in the role of one of the world’s most legendary Cuban entertainers. I’ll put that issue aside for a moment, which is admittedly difficult in the context of a film examining the marriage of an American woman who once signed up for the communist party to a Cuban man amid the height of McCarthyism.
Bardem’s a fantastic actor who finds himself woefully miscast for this part. Kidman may be enough of a chameleon to make it work, but instead of losing Javier Bardem to Desi Arnaz, the opposite occurs here. Yes, I said this isn’t cosplay, but where Kidman and Ball didn’t look alike, Bardem and Arnaz have divergent physical qualities. Bardem is a broad, burly guy who embodies the classical definition of being ruggedly handsome. He can never really do enough to overcome the ground between himself and baby-faced Arnaz’s wide-eyed, pretty boy charms. And while I don’t know much about Arnaz’s life off-screen, Barden’s measured and layered performances still can’t quite capture the big, broad acting and earnest magic of Ricky Ricardo scenes within the film.
That mixed bag of performances is a pretty solid analogue for the quality of Being the Ricardos in general, and it’s worth mentioning that Hale, Lacy and Shawkat, along with J.K. Simmons as our “Fred” and Nina Arianda as our “Ethel” make for a well-rounded and fun group of supporting performances. Being the Ricardos has high moments of pure nostalgia, fascinating character development, and witty dialogue. But for each of those positive elements, Sorkin has moments where he’d benefit from the “less is more” approach. Be it the overly-complex narrative or dialogue that snaps back and forth from clever to eye-rolly (do we really need to see Lucille Ball to use the term “gaslighting,” ever?) , Being the Ricardos is sometimes too precious for its own good.