Being the Ricardos

The Red-Headed Scare (It's All True)

or

Looo-cy, You Got Some Sorkin' To Do

 

I had a Lucy Ricardo reaction to this project first coming to mind: curling my lip to show all my teeth and going "Ewwww." Even though Being the Ricardos is helmed by Aaron Sorkin, Sorkin, as he's demonstrated, isn't the most effective when delivering comedy material—drama with humor and irony, sure. But comedy? C'mon, I watched the entire run of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." I may have been the only one.

 

Lucy's been on a lot of people's minds lately: TCM had a month of Lucy movies last month in conjunction with their "highlights" podcast about her life. This movie covers a bit of what that covered, but squeezes it all in within the space of one week of production of the "I Love Lucy" show, those issues being Desi's affairs, Lucy being pregnant just ahead of shooting a season's worth of shows, and the disclosure—on Walter Winchell's radio broadcast—that Lucy (coded as "America's favorite TV comedienne") was a communist.*

 

All true. Desi was sneaking out on Lucy. Lucy did become pregnant while shooting a season and, despite resistance from CBS, sponsors Westinghouse, and Phillip Morris, and incorporated Lucy's pregnancy into the story-line—a first (one of many) that distinguished "I Love Lucy" from the stone age of television. And Lucy was a communist, but not a practicing one. She had checked "communist" on a voter registration card in 1936, at the behest of her beloved grandfather Fred Hunt, who raised Lucy and her brother in their childhood.

It's also true that Ball and Arnaz were better together than they were apart. Both were quick-witted dedicated hard-workers with gambler's instincts and business savvy. Together, they bought the old RKO studios (which years before had released Lucy from her contract), created the 3-camera technique for documenting TV shows—which made better clarity, guaranteed delivery, and allowed episodes to re-run—clobbered television taboos, Desi gave the green-light to "The Untouchables" (narrated by Winchell, ironically) and Lucy said yes to production of TV's "Mission: Impossible" and "Star Trek." At one point, the greatest assets for Westinghouse and Phillip Morris...and CBS. They had a lot of power, but it was all power that could be taken away, if they didn't deliver. the goods.

Aaron Sorkin knows his way around television—he's made three TV series ABOUT television ("Sports Night," the afore-mentioned "Studio 60" and "The Newsroom") and the backstage turmoil involved in filling up broadcast time on a regular consistent basis. It is a meat-grinder, and anybody wanting to cut corners to make it a little easier, risks the wrath of millions of viewers. Desi-Lucy knew that. And so does Sorkin. He also knows what it's like to produce a carefully scrutinized show while your life is falling apart. Even when things are going well, personalities and egos have to be considered and worked around, editing and second-guessing happen constantly, interference from outside sources need to be batted out to the foul-zone and sometimes the drama off-stage is more intricate—and better—than the one on-stage.

Sorkin segments the film into a television work-week: Monday-"Table Reading; Tuesday—"Blocking Rehearsal"; Wednesday-"Camera Blocking"; Thursday-"Dress Rehearsal"; Friday—"Show Night". Those are the steps for the actors and technical crew to take from the first reading of the script on Day 1. Things get changed, problems get discussed, it's staged, and how it's going to be recorded is worked out, then the final touches and intricacies before the final day when it's presented before an audience. A 25 minute play produced each week, and the audience has to be "warmed up" that it's going to be a good time and they're free to enjoy themselves.They see the fun parts. They don't see the work. 

They also see the parts being played. They do not see the actors. Which brings us to casting. Cate Blanchett was first cast but dropped out. Nicole Kidman got the "Lucille Ball" part and Javier Bardem the "Desi Arnaz" part. J.K. Simmons plays William Frawley, and Nina Ariadna plays Vivian Vance. And they work. Some may grouse that Kidman doesn't look like Lucille Ball, but then we didn't see Lucille Ball, we saw "Lucy Ricardo." Lucille Ball was a tough business woman, who knew that time was a commodity and shouldn't be wasted by niceties—there was work to be done. Kidman gets that. Yeah, she can do the schtick, exploding the blue eyes and pitching the voice to screech-mode to play "Lucy"—but she spends most of her time as the intense, driven actress with a cigarette-growl and is very serious about comedy...and character. "Lucy Ricardo" didn't just happen, she was created, given what Lucille knew about getting attention and laughs. And like the silent comedians, she worried about timing and earning guffaws without doing it cheaply. It's an interpretation, not an imitation and it works. The voice is phenomenal.

Bardem doesn't have the boyish good looks of Desi Arnaz, but he's all over the charm and the drive...his scenes with Kidman are played like an old movie with too-perfect lines and better timing. And he's pretty good doing the songs. J.K. Simmons is a delight as Bill Frawley, with the rasp but not the girth, full of cranky jibes, belying a worldly wisdom (Sorkin writes a lovely line when he invites Lucy to a bar for a drink during a fraught work-day. "It's 10 am!" "Well, it's always 10:15 somewhere!") and Ariadna's Vivian Vance is a frustrated actress, worried that she'll be typecast frumpily, playing a woman "married to my grandfather."

But, Sorkin pays particular attention to the writers of "I Love Lucy" with actors portraying them at the time of the show's creation and with "witness testimony" of the same people older trying to set the record straight: Executive producer Jess Oppenheimer (played by Tony Hale and John Rubenstein), Bob Carroll (played by Jake Lacey and Ronny Cox) and Madelyn Pugh (played by Alia Shawkat and Linda Lavin!). Being a writer himself, Sorkin gives them the roles of experts, the elder versions smoothing over the inevitable pecking battles we see occurring in a bull-pen during the earlier scenes.

And—like a good sit-com—it all gets resolved in the end. Well, almost resolved. And, while it's true that Desi (in his usual role warming up the audience) did talk to the waiting crowd about the communist accusations, but he did not use the gambit Sorkin employs—although it is true that Arnaz knew the person mentioned, having met him at the race-track. Instead, Cuban-American Arnaz merely reminded the crowd that they were all Americans, and that, in this country, the accused are innocent until proven guilty. He merely appealed to their better natures. I kind of like the truth better. And Lucy was greeted, when introduced, to thunderous applause. But, Sorkin leaves out what happened after the taping: she went back to the crowd—something she never did—and said "God bless you for being so kind," then went to her dressing room and broke down.

 

Tough but not invulnerable.

Instead, Sorkin leaves us with one last enigmatic image. The crises have been averted. "I Love Lucy" goes on and no is being fired or losing their job. Sorkin shows the continuity after near-disaster, and the show going on, the actors on set, and the camera slowly moves up into the stage-lights looking down on the activity, until it hovers above the beams and bracers forming a television shaped screen around the scene below. What's he saying? Are they trapped? Is this a ploy showing the metaphoric similarity of the Arnazes to the Ricardo's?—because if it is, it doesn't work. What's the gist here? Maybe it'll come to me, but it sure doesn't communicate.

 

And it ends with television static. I only say this because it will cause confusion when it starts streaming on monitors December 21. Do not adjust your sets.   

* I love Desi's resulting line: "maybe they're talking about Imogene Coca..."