Being the Ricardos

 

Aaron Sorkin's Being the Ricardos is set during a week of taping an episode of the second season of the phenomenally popular TV sitcom I Love Lucy, starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Ball, played to near perfection by Nicole Kidman, is depicted as a remarkably savvy and self-possesed former movie contract player turned TV megastar who when the action begins has recently testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and been cleared but is called a Communist, albeit obliquely, by a popular radio opinionist. In '50s America (and maybe even today), the red stain could end a career.

Sorkin applies his knowledge of U.S. history and his classically brisk wit to retell how Ball and Arnaz (a solid Javier Bardem) and their production team, including CBS network executives and program sponsor Philip-Morris, respond while preparing that week's show. It wouldn't be a Sorkin production if the narrative did not include emotional and relational complications -- Lucy and Desi's early courtship, infighting between writers and suspicions between the show's stars (there's a reason Lucy is looking at the camera in the movie's poster). These subplots track along with the main storyline, and, in masterly fashion, enhance its themes.

Those looking for a wall-to-wall comedy might be a bit disappointed because Sorkin -- as smart a screenwriter as any -- always has more on his mind than laughs, which are abundant here. He also explores issues of autocracy, intrusive politics and female empowerment -- setting one foot in the past and the other in the present.