Being the Ricardos: A sticky situation but not much comedy

Every so often in Aaron Sorkin’s tremendously busy depiction of one week in the life of TV comedy legend Lucille Ball, Nicole Kidman’s Lucy stops dead in her tracks – this is the walkiest and talkiest Sorkin project yet – and mulls over some soon-to-be iconic moment of sitcom history. A lightbulb does not quite appear over Kidman’s head, nor does the word “Eureka” flash across the screen, but it might as well.

All of Sorkin’s trademark bells and whistles – sudden flashbacks, constant yakking, sarcastic exchanges, encyclopaedic hunks of exposition – are in play as Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem)  enter another week of shooting their CBS sitcom I Love Lucy. As mockumentary inserts tell us – in Wikipediaese – it’s 1952, it’s the second season, and it’s the most popular programme in America, with 60 million viewers every week. There’s a snag. Lucy has been accused, by columnist and HUAC shill Walter Winchell, of being a communist. (Lucy’s grandfather was a communist, and she accordingly “checked a box” on a voter registration form). There’s another snag. Lucy is pregnant and the horrified CBS brass won’t allow such an indelicate condition to appear on television.

These subplots jostle against scenes from Lucy and Desi’s marriage, a dramatisation of how they met on the set of Too Many Girls, and the tensions between cast and crew on the soundstage and in rehearsal for the show.

Inevitably, the drama-behind-the-comedy by the creator of The West Wing provides the strongest scenes in the film. JK Simmons (playing William Frawley playing Fred Mertz), in particular, has fun with the Sorkinese spitballs, barbs that are frequently intended for his Lucy costar, Vivian Vance (Nina Arianda). Beneath the snappy dialogue, there’s little spark or insight. Kidman simultaneously evokes Rosalind Russell and Marie Curie as Ball. It’s a fine performance but any resemblance to characters living or dead – including Lucille Ball – is purely coincidental.

Sorkin has said that he’s not a particular fan of I Love Lucy’s brand of slapstick and Being the Ricardos goes out of its snooty way to avoid anything as vulgar as Lucille Ball’s comedy, save for a very brief glimpse of the famous grape-stomping scene. The film’s obsession with process means we’re never getting to drink the wine.

Streaming on Amazon Prime from December 21st