‘Being The Ricardos’ Review: Aaron Sorkin’s Snappy, Slick Crowd-Pleaser Often Flirts With Disaster

Ever since Todd Black got into the film business as a producer, he wanted to work with Aaron Sorkin.

Marlo Thomas Guest ColumnistFor Variety‘s Writers on Writers, Marlo Thomas pens a tribute to “Being the Ricardos” (screenplay by Aaron Sorkin). There is a wonderful scene in “Being the Ricardos” — Aaron Sorkin’s wrenching chronicle of the pioneering TV comedy series “I Love Lucy” — in which Lucy drags two of her co-stars to the studio at 2 a.m., during a thunderstorm, to re-block a comic moment in a dinner scene that hadn’t gone well in rehearsal.

Academy Award-winning actor Javier Bardem experienced a reawakening while becoming intimately acquainted with Desi Arnaz, the I Love Lucy star who Bardem brings to life in Amazon’s Being the Ricardos. And it all happened while the past and present collided during multiple musical numbers including “Babalu” and “Cuban Pete,” and while listening to private audio recordings shared by Lucy and Desi’s daughter, Lucie Arnaz.

Desi Arnaz responding to a report that his wife, Lucille Ball, was a communistThe nation was stunned when, on Sept.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterFollowing a limited theatrical release and a well-received bow to awards voters,”Being the Ricardos” finally dances its way to Amazon Prime Video subscribers on Tuesday.While Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem topline the Aaron Sorkin drama, one of the major takeaways in both critical reviews and early audience reaction has been the unexpected potency and drama of Vivian Vance — portrayed by “Goliath” and “Billions” star Nina Arianda.Vance was best friend to Lucy

While the film doesn’t seem to have the awards season legs that Amazon hoped it would, “Being the Ricardos” is still gaining a lot of attention, particularly for the lead roles played by Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem. However, those casting choices also came with a fair amount of controversy, particularly with choosing the Spanish Bardem to play real-life Cuban actor Desi Arnaz.

Nicole Kidman stars as Lucille Ball in the upcoming Being The Ricardos opposite Javier Bardem.

“Today,” the morning program ran an interview where Kidman was asked if she gave “any space” to early critiques about her landing the role, including whether or not she looks enough like the legendary Ball.“Try not to, but [I’m] a human being, so there’s times when you go, ‘Gosh, maybe I’m not the right person for this.’ But that’s where having somebody like Aaron, who really said at the beginning, it was like, ‘I’m not wanting a perfect rendition or imitation of Lucy.

endorsed the film, written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, in an Instagram post. The film follows one week of production on an episode of “I Love Lucy” and the chaos that surrounds both the show and Lucy and Desi’s lives.

Aaron Sorkin and starring Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball and Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz, is set during one week of production as the couple films an episode of. The season 1 episode, “Fred and Ethel Fight,” is just one of three episodes partially recreated onscreen, while the film refers to two other key moments from the series as it jumps back and forth through time to show the couple dealing with major developments in their lives.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorTurning Nicole Kidman into Lucille Ball and Javier Bardem into Desi Arnaz in “Being the Ricardos” wasn’t only about creating a facsimile of the iconic 1950s TV duo.Rather, director Aaron Sorkin instructed hair department head Teressa Hill and makeup department head Ana Lozano, “We are not taking a photograph; we are painting a picture.” The approach is generating awards buzz for the below-the-line duo.The film, opening Dec.

That movie sounds great, and Sorkin understands that trajectory, but his compulsion is telling you his intentions — like in the fake “this is what happened” interviews — rather than show us with compelling scene dynamics, or to let them arise naturally in a honed narrative. He even devises a wonderfully bittersweet metaphor in the Ricardos’ soundstage “home” as the only place where Ball and Arnaz truly got each other; at work, they had something they knew how to protect in each other.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticContrary to popular belief, not every piece of drama with Aaron Sorkin’s name on it has the inimitably timed, exquisitely percussive sound of I-top-you-no-I top-you combative patter known as Sorkinese. “The American President,” in its way, had a sweet flow to it.

Nicole Kidman is on the Oscar campaign trail for her new movie Being the Ricardos and she just arrived in L.A.

The cast of West Side Story share a big laugh during their Town Hall appearance with Jess Cagle held at the SiriusXM Studios on Monday (December 6) in Los Angeles.

Nicole Kidman and her "Being the Ricardos" co-star Javier Bardem opened up about what it was like to get to know the real-life characters they embody, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.  The duo stars in the upcoming movie from writer Aaron Sorkin that details a particularly eventful week in the life of the couple who were married on-screen and off while working on the show "I Love Lucy" from 1951 to 1957.To promote the film’s Dec.