The private lives of public legends
“Spencer” looks pristine and is shot like a thriller, finding horror in the hallowed halls of royalty but what does it tell us about anything in those halls? Very little.
If “Spencer” is too schematic, one might call “Being the Ricardos” overstuffed. Visually, it is much less ambitious than the splendour of “Spencer,” which is well-mounted, although its aesthetic fails to consistently deepen its themes. But, Aaron Sorkin’s third directorial feature is ambitious in a different way. The primary story, set in 1953 where Ball has a week from hell after concerns about her alleged communism surface, is interrupted by talking heads in the present (writers and producers of “I Love Lucy”) and flashbacks to the early days of Lucille Ball’s romance with her husband Desi Arnaz. The interruptions are unfortunate. The modern talking heads are completely useless. They add nothing of note and leave actors like Linda Lavin, John Rubenstein and Ronny Cox unusually charmless. The pre-1953 interruptions are of a different note. They contain significant ahistorical references the film strangely insists on, it misjudges our need to have the dynamics of Lucy and Desi’s relationship showed to us so slavishly. But it benefits from Nicole Kidman, who is tied to the fate of “Being the Ricardos,” throughout.
Like the incongruity between Diana and Stewart, the incongruity between Kidman and Lucille Ball feels distinct. Ball’s intense comedic registers feel out of sync with Kidman’s more dramatic reputation. The constant referrals to Kidman’s non-comedic skills, and her appearance, have plagued the film since it was announced and it feels impossible not to read this into the film itself which introduces Ball by her voice, saving us from a glimpse of her until the end of the scene. Kidman does not look like Ball, and the cosmetic transformation is inexact. But, even as Kidman’s comedic register is not historically like Ball, her work in the 21st century was defined by a role that feels inline with what Sorkin asks of her. There’s a scene in “Moulin Rouge!” where Jim Broadbent’s proprietor asks Kidman’s glamorous courtesan how she plans to seduce the Duke, a mark. Kidman moves through a series of potential versions of herself: wilting flower, bright and bubbly, smouldering temptress. The moment lasts half a minute, but it’s part of that film’s engagement with Kidman’s prowess as an actress good at playing acting and an actress good at playing actresses who are always performing. And in “Being the Ricardos”, Lucille Ball by way of Nicole Kidman is always performing.
That the pre-1953 flashbacks work is because Kidman, who never really looks young enough, manages to distinguish the cadence and energy of Ball from decade to decade. Sorkin’s film is conceptually overemphasised. Ball’s communism scare is complemented by her fear that her husband is cheating on her, her jealousy of her colleagues more svelte figure, her unhappiness with the writing team, Desi’s fear of being emasculated on the show, the producers’ worries about Ball’s pregnancy and a handful of other concerns. The film runs just over two hours and still feels like it’s bursting at the seams. Too much is happening. Sorkin has grown more ambitious as a director and that ambition gives way to a clash of visual tones in the film, like a child showing off. If “Spencer” is, at least, aesthetically assured, “Being the Ricardos” feels too agitated. Jon Hutman’s production is doing a lot of groundwork imagining the spaces of the varying timelines, but Sorkin the director is too beguiled with Sorkin the writer to allow the visual team to do the storytelling. Where Knight’s work on “Spencer” is low on characterisation, Sorkin’s script is heavy with it. Each character’s line has a hidden meaning. It’s a busyness which has moments of striking clarity (a conversation between Ball and Nina Arianda’s Vivian Vance, a co-star) but some that feel too worked out (an argument between two writers). But if “Being the Ricardos” is a film doing too much, it has an actress who can thread those variations.
Ten minutes before the film ends, Sorkin gives Ball a private disappointment after what seems like a public win. The moment plays out with Kidman’s Ball and Javier Bardem as Desi in the backstage of a set. Visually, the moment is nothing special, except it’s asking Kidman to sell an emotional wallop that the script shakily offers up. She shouts, she cries and then she interrupts her tears to switch registers to another version of herself within the span of minutes. After a brief talking-head interruption, we return to her now “on” as a different Lucy, equipped with a different voice. Is Kidman ever really Lucille Ball? Maybe not. But what she manages to be, is a range of different versions of a woman threaded together by her eyes, forever darting around the screen taking in everything around her. “Being the Ricardos” never really keeps up with her. Bardem is good, if inconsistent. Arianda is rewarding, but wasted. The rest of the cast ranges from good (Tony Hale) to unspectacular (J.K. Simmons in a role that feels similar to a run of similarly plain-talking men). But it is Kidman who by sheer force of will turns “Being the Ricardos” into something that feels like it’s actually saying something about the rupture between the public and private.
In their way, we might extract some notion of Diana and Lucille Ball as women playing different iterations for those around them, and for themselves. Neither script feels truly clear on presenting this dichotomous relationship between those varying selves, though. But if “Being the Ricardos” feels like a film that understands the woman at its centre, it’s due to the sheer fortitude of Kidman, who recognises that transformation moves beyond the cosmetic. Her work justifies the gambit of this biopic.