Aaron Sorkin returns to be talked about with a film that develops again within the biopic (as we have also seen ne The 7 of Chicago, for example), starting with two well-known characters in the history of American entertainment, and then creating the fresco of a specific era. Here is the Hollywood cinema and television dynamics of the 1950s they become the canvas on which to draw a story with human hues at the center of which we find all the imperfections of chance, merged with a system designed by specific, hypocritical and complex cultural styles, especially if they are analyzed nowadays. Being the Ricardos, the film of which today we propose the review, it presents itself as history “Taken from the real”, soon becoming other, something deeper and more hidden, smoky and at the same time extremely current. This director has always used the past to reflect on the present, in this case, however, the magnifying glass gets closer and closer to the subject, to the point of going beyond the epidermis to tear away everything that is there. it is under and around the bones. It remains only the soul and all those small details apparently inconsistent but central in the characterization of the essence of the human being. We remind you that the film has been present since 21 of this Decemberin the catalog Amazon Prime Video.
A couple and a tv series
At the center of the film we find two protagonists who really existed: Lucille Ball And Desi Arnas (played by Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem respectively). The two are a couple and over the 1950s they caught up an unprecedented success with a situation comedy named Lucy and Io. This situation comedy has made the history of American television, even reaching peaks of spectators of over 60 million. Being the Ricardos, as we will also see later in the review, it originates from all this, building one bipolar narrative in which shots from the present alternate, in which people who really worked on the series are interviewed (in style documentary therefore), to the actual plot reconstructed according to the era. The possibility of talking to these people from the past, however, contributes to further expanding the narrative, allowing the director not to talk exclusively about the TV series and the making off, but also about its two protagonists and their personal dynamics in a precise moment of their life as a couple.
Here is where the series itself becomes a real one pretext to talk about a Hollywood and America apparently very far away, but at the same time apparently close. Sorkin takes advantage of this for deepen the relationship between Lucille and Desi, talks about the way in which they met and their story as a married couple, soon abandoning the context of the documentary, to reproduce a more intimate and delicate, outlined on the interpretation of its two main actors, and on the human affairs to involve these two characters. The focus of the film, therefore, soon shifts to this one couple and how they experience mutual love and respect. About their dysfunctional love related to the way they play their characters in the series on set, setting up a reflection that is also psychological in some situations.
Being the Ricardos therefore offers two fundamental elements to the spectators, theemotional deepening and thoughtful of a couple far from perfect or as it appears on television, and as you will read later in the review, a real cross-section of a context which is stripped of any frills. It is precisely the context in which these two protagonists move, in fact, that interests the director, always ready to erase any stereotype about the world of American entertainment of the time, to criticize the most extreme aspects, such as the mad stardom, or theobjectification of the actors to the detriment of their own biological reasons. From this the general vision of the film expands further, casting a shadow on the world of entertainment and success, and on the way in which they affect the individual. The plot events begin to collapse for two specific reasons: Lucille is accused by the press of being Communist (in a period in which in America joining that party was considered an attitudeor “anti-American”), ei tabloid continue to question Desi’s loyalty to Lucy. From this Sorkin frames the events around his protagonists in a system that industrializes continuously their image, trying in every way to grasp their weaknesses, thus magnifying them. Two stars victims of the tabloids and of investigative journalism, even low, but with a strong impact on their very existence.
Precision
One of the greatest merits from Being the Ricardos, it’s interpretations of his cast. Since the direction, in many situations, is extremely attentive to the emotional modus operandi of the actors, the result is a very respectable work both from the Kidman, that gives Bardem, than from the rest of the cast. Some particular developments are based on their own masterful interpretations within their respective roles, to the point of vanish altogether in favor of history. The film is also enhanced by both the faithful environmental reconstruction which offers frame by frame, resulting deeply immersive in the immediate, both come on camera movements attentive and sinuous, sweet in their capture of the various developments.
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