BEING THE RICARDOS

 
When I heard Nicole Kidman was going to play Lucille Ball in a film I thought no way. Buy way. She does a magnificent job of getting, for me, the essence of Ball without imitating every aspect of her. The real miscasting is Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz. It's like casting Liam Neeson to play Hugh Grant or Sonny Liston to play Muhammad Ali. Arnaz's sweet-looking "pretty boy" face and smile was as essential to his disarming screen presence and charisma as his Cuban accent. However attractive you might find Bardem, "pretty boy" is not a part of his particular charm. It changed the quality and impact of Desi's and Lucy's feuds and along with a few historical revisions left me disappointed in the movie. Though I still found it worth watching for Kidman's performance, and J.K. Simmons's and Nina Arianda's as Fred and Ethel.