Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
BEING THE RICARDOS
Cert 15 ★★★ In cinemas now, on Amazon Prime from December 21
“I’m Lucille Ball – when I’m being funny, you’ll know it,” says Nicole Kidman in this wordy sort-of-biopic of the I Love Lucy star.
Kidman nails the husky voice and comic timing that brought 60 million US viewers to Ball’s sitcom in its 1950s heyday. But our focus isn’t on Kidman’s performance.
We are aware that well-crafted sentence is written by The Social Network and Steve Jobs writer Aaron Sorkin, and that isn’t a problem when we’re lost in the story.
But the characters are so thinly sketched, playing second fiddle to Sorkin’s way with words, you can almost hear the clattering of his keyboard.
Set over a very eventful week in 1952, we follow Ball as she expertly hones her physical comedy ahead of a live recording of a new episode.
But personal crises are looming. Lucille has been up in front of Senator Joseph
McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee over claims that she is a card-carrying communist. If the newspapers pick up on the story, her career could be finished.
Meanwhile, her on-andoff-screen husband Desi (Javier Bardem) is splashed all over the tabloids after being seen accompanying a mysterious young lady on a night out on the tiles.
Ball knows she will have to be at her best to keep her fans on-side.
The backstage scenes are fascinating but we learn very little about her politics or her feelings for her husband. It’s a zippy, clever film but the smart dialogue distracts more often than it illuminates.