Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball in “Being the Ricardos”

[dragonflies]

Yeah I can still hear her accent. She doesn't embody Ball  the way an actress should who is portraying her. 

[DramatistDreamer]

So many people are disparaging this Sorkin interview, for so many different reasons, that I am tempted to read it.

 

[I Am A Swede]

^^

Why are they disparaging it?   

I found it a very good interview, and after reading it I have a new understanding of the casting for this film. 

[DramatistDreamer]

I'm not really going to get into other people's feelings on the interview but having just read it myself, I take much of what Sorkin says with a grain of salt.

There really is no such thing as "Cancel Culture". There are criminals like Harvey Weinstein, R. Kelly and Bill Cosby and remains to be seen whether any of them will do any real time.

Dave Chappelle is a millionaire several times over, who did a 'hit and run' stand up piece and will likely return with another special on some media vehicle, whether on streaming or in some comedy club. His career won't be hurting at all, no matter the number of denunciations.

Also, Sorkin is no one to decry cancel culture when he practically threatened to sue some middle-schoolers for staging a play at their schools because he didn't want any competition for his star-studded Broadway version of To Kill A Mockingbird. Yes, you heard that right, the producers of the Broadway production threatened to sue any production of the stage adaptation that was being staged anywhere within 50 miles of the Broadway play. Now that sure seems like cancelling something.

It's also hard for me to believe that someone of Sorkin's age never knew that Lucille Ball had to face the HUAC. It's a well known quote that Desi Arnaz said to the press that "The only thing "red" about Lucy is her hair!" There are no big screen movies about Ball but there are some excellent documentaries on her. One on U.S. public television, than be found in any public library gives a great deal of insight into Ball. 

I do agree with Sorkin's statement that looks are not very important in casting Ball, but then he goes on to call Kidman a wonderful mimic of Ball, despite so many people claiming to hear Kidman's Aussie accent in the trailer. He's also assuming that those who are critical of Kidman as the choice is simply because they are confusing Lucille Ball and Lucille Ricardo, when there is more than enough footage of Ball in non-Lucy situations to discern her manner outside of the sitcom. I also get the fact that he wants an experienced actress and not a "beginner" as he puts it, but honestly there are plenty of highly experienced actresses who are still not household names, he only need to look at Broadway, but Sorkin is only interested in big stars, even his B'day play proves this.

It also made me chuckle when he says he doesn't wish to hide behind the casting director in his explanation for why he hired a European actor to play a Caribbean Latin American man, yet still proceeds to throw her under the bus by saying she was fine with it and she's a Latina. Sorkin did unwittingly reveal the fact that he wasn't going to say no to two big stars who express the desire to be in the movie. (In a way, this is a strangely ironic twist to the recurrent theme of I Love Lucy where Lucy always wanted to be featured at her husband's club but he would always refuse her, so she had to scheme to get in). The money aspect and the star vehicle seems like the most honest part of this interview.

 

At the risk of getting into an aspect that I usually avoid, for not wanting to sound critical of someone's looks, Sorkin goes on about how gorgeous Ball was in her prime (and she was stunningly beautiful), comparing her to Jessica Rabbit or Rita Hayworth, nothing about Kidman in this trailer gives off that vibe. Perhaps I would have to watch the movie to get a better look. Kidman as Lucy, even in casual settings, looks extremely "made up" and not in a flattering way--they've sort of made her look "plastic-y". 

I guess when the movie comes out and people actually see it, will be the best way to discern whether this is all just talk.

[DRW50]

The TV movie with Frances Fisher and Maurice Benard also delves into this topic - it's the first place I ever heard about it. I don't buy that he didn't know about it, I think he is just saying that to make his work seem more important, but if he is being honest, it shows how very sheltered he is. 

I don't like him and I don't like his work, and I don't understand why the world needs yet another project about how unhappy Lucy and Desi were and how broken their marriage was. I've already seen it and heard it 500 times now. The whole thing, especially his casting choices and comments, come across as another of his vanity projects where he can use his stars to express his same old themes and look down at the little people. 

[DramatistDreamer]

Oh wow, how could I have forgotten about this telefilm?! 

So-called "Sorkinese" is a style unique to him (surprise,most talented writers can say the same) but it's hardly a technique, nor so I think that it should ever be emulated (because why?). From the movies of his that I have seen, I do think the Social Network is his best one, he understands the mentality of a Zuckerberg, and perhaps, on some level, may identify with him, based on some of his interviews.

I'm not castigating him because of his privilege, but I do think he should own up to the fact that he has it. Throwing others who are lower on the hierarchy than he is just so disingenuous.

I still maintain that the PBS Documentary is the best work out there about Ball and Arnaz. It also had the benefit of including interviews by the writers of I Love Lucy, while they were still alive. It was so well done.

[DemetriKane]

I’m rooting for this to great. Nicole deserves her oscar for all the work she has done the last 5 years.

[janea4old]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/nicole-kidman-javier-bardem-interview-being-the-ricardos-pressures-1235062363/

[Faulkner]

 

[dragonflies]

I watched some of and it and SNORE. I basically felt I was watching Nicole Kidman trying to play Ball. IMO they should have gone with unknowns.

 

 

[DramatistDreamer]

That review is certainly interesting. Thanks for posting, @Faulkner

Not having seen Being The Ricardos but being very familiar with Sorkin's hyper masculine type of storytelling (hey, at least it's not Mamet), I could easily see those issues undermining the narrative. The issue of not allowing Kidman to be funny, seems like a real problem, given how flat out funny Ball was. If what the reviews are saying are true- that the movie fails to show how Lucy was able to become so beloved while being so exacting, then that might be the most unfortunate part of all. Perhaps no one can explain this dichotomy better than Ball herself, who, in an interview, once described how she berated crew on their seeming inability to capture the right lighting on set, while also describing how she cried any time she had to fire someone, not to mention, a biographer also mentioned that in business meetings with network executives, Lucy functioned as both boss and traditional homemaker, often cleaning the tables before or after business meetings at Desilu Productions.

It seemed as if Sorkin had the perfect opportunity to dramatize this dichotomy with the condensed story structure he opted for, with all these inciting incidents occurring in the space of a week.

It also sounded like the reviewers bent over backwards to stress that Kidman and Bardém are excellent actors and have chemistry, while stating that both were miscast to play these roles. I'm not sure about the reviewer's choice of Katherine Hahn, who would, without doubt, be able to pull off the comedic elements (had there been any), but I am unsure about how Hahn would inhabit the glamour of Ball, who, outside of the show, was very glamorous (as well as gorgeous) when you see archival footage of Ball in print and on film. If you're going to go with a non-Cuban actor, Jaime Camil seems like he would have been a very good choice though.

 

Having seen Verdon/Fosse, Being The Ricardos should have followed the template- choose character actors, over movie stars. 

[DramatistDreamer]

Boy, you weren't kidding! I don't have Amazon Prime, so I managed to see it through an invite via virtual screening and I literally dozed off!

Linda Lavin as an older Madelyn Pugh was one of the highlights. She managed a wry wit, despite that Sorkinese dialogue jumble.

J.K. Simmons and Nina Arianda were really good as William Crawley and Vivian Vance. The way the actors were able to display Vance and Frawley's dislike of each other, hidden under the guise of humor during that Table Read sequence was very clear and very good. 

After that, I literally struggled to stay awake. I'm not sure whether it was script, direction or actor's choice but Kidman's portrayal of Lucille Ball seemed wizened to the point of coldness. We get it, she was not just a comedienne but a businesswoman, but this Lucy lacked humor and warmth. 

Perhaps I missed it after he drifted off to sleep but I only saw one side to the passion between Ball and Arnaz, and that was the volatility. Sex scenes devoid of tenderness. Arguments. I kept contrasting those images in the home movies displayed in the documentary about Lucille Ball, of tender exchanges between Ball and Arnaz, as they played in the swimming pool with one of their grandchildren toward the end of Arnaz' life. Both had been long divorced to the other, married to others and the love between Ball and Arnaz was so still so apparent. I didn't see any of that in Being The Ricardos.

[DramatistDreamer]

I realize that many times, actors do some 'out there' maneuvers in their campaigns for the Academy award but I don't understand this one. At all.

[prefab1]

That's just a still from Nicole's upcoming movie, Oops, I Did It Again: The Britney Spears Story.