Becoming the Ricardos
Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Being the Ricardos proves to be a step up in Aaron Sorkin’s directing career. When placed next to Sorkin’s previous film, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Being the Ricardos proves to be the better film because of its technical directing choices, tighter structure, and bold casting choices.
After the movie’s opening scene, the film cuts to an antique radio sitting in a living room playing what we can only assume is the Walter Winchell show. Lucille is in the foreground, lying on the couch. The door opens, and Desi walks in, “Lucy, I’m home!” Lucille stands up, “Where the hell have you been, you Cuban dimwit?” Desi and Lucille argue in the foreground while the camera focuses on the radio throughout the entire sequence. The audience can hear the argument dialogue clearly while Winchell’s voice on the radio fades into the natural sounds. It’s an interesting juxtaposition between the audio and the visuals. The argument is over a magazine article that claimed Desi cheated on Lucille. Desi convinces Lucille that the magazine got it wrong. Then the Nats pop, and the audience can hear Winchell’s voice. He says, “The most popular of all television stars was confronted with her membership in the communist party.” Then Winchell’s voice fades back into the nats, and the movie cuts to Lucille and Desi’s reactions, who are now in focus. This juxtaposition between the audio of the argument and the visual of the radio effectively introduces the film’s central conflict. This scene introduces the audience to Lucille’s growing suspicion of Desi’s unfaithfulness on top of the looming threat of losing her career over the accusation broadcasted on the radio. This juxtaposition is one example of the level of technical direction that is missing from The Trial of the Chicago Seven. While The Trial of the Chicago Seven does an excellent job of using dialogue and performance to tell the story, Being the Ricardos uses visuals and technical work to tell its story. The Trial of the Chicago 7 is an excellent filmed stage play, while Being the Ricardos is a great movie.
Sorkin is well known for his talent as a playwright and screenwriter. The Trial of the Chicago 7 is an excellent, well-written story, but Being the Ricardos manages to have a tighter structure. The Trial of the Chicago 7 takes place over five months. Being the Ricardos condenses actual events that took place over several years into a week. Making this movie take place over a week allowed the audience to follow Lucille’s work week from the table-read to rehearsals to the actual production of I Love Lucy, all as she deals with the intense threat of possibly losing everything.
Like Trial of the Chicago 7, Being the Ricardos has a cast full of A-list actors. The difference between the two movies is that in Being the Ricardos, the actors play icons everyone knows. People know Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Though they may remember the Trial of the Chicago Seven in 1969, they don’t know Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Lee Weiner. The problem that Being the Ricardos runs into is that when the audience is more familiar with the people portrayed in the movie, they are more likely to be critical of the casting choices and performances. When the trailer for Being the Ricardos dropped, the movie received criticism for its casting choices of hiring Nicole Kidman to play Lucille Ball and Javier Bardem to play Desi Arnaz. They criticized these casting choices because the actors looked nothing like the people they were playing. After the movie came out, Lucie Arnaz, Lucille and Desi’s daughter, posted a video on YouTube sharing her thoughts on the movie. She said, “Nicole Kidman became my mother’s soul. She crawled into her head…Javier Bardem…he really doesn’t look that much like my dad. They have a different profile…but he has everything that Dad had. He has his wits, his charm, his dimples, his musicality. He has his strength and tenacity, and you can tell from the performance that he just loved him, and that’s what he needed…Everybody that Aaron Sorkin cast in this film right down to a guy who has one line is perfectly cast.” Sorkin made a bold casting choice. Instead of choosing lookalikes for Desi and Lucille, he chose people who “Became their souls.”
