"Being the Ricardos" and "Don't Look Up"

Let's take a look at Aaron Sorkin and Adam McKay's latest films.

"I Love Lucy" is undeniably one of the most influential television series in history, and its characters are iconic.  The show has faded from prominence considerably over the last twenty years, but I think most people still know Lucy and Ricky Ricardo on sight.  So the casting of Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz initially struck me as very peculiar.  In the odd frame, Kidman might be able to pass for Ball, but Bardem doesn't remotely resemble or sound like Arnaz.  

As the film went on, however, I appreciated the casting for helping to delineate between the onscreen Ricardos and the real people operating behind the scenes.  It's clear what drew Sorkin to the material - this is a showbiz story about the making of a classic series, and a profile of one of the most powerful couples in entertainment of their era.  Lucy and Desi are contentious and brilliant and very different from their onscreen personas.  Lucy is a demanding perfectionist, desperate to hold on to her hard-won success.  Desi is a shrewd businessman with some considerable vices.  The film focuses on one eventful week during the height of "I Love Lucy's" success, where Lucy and Desi's marriage is in trouble, the show is in trouble, and everyone is on edge - including co-stars Vivian Vance (Nina Arianda) and William Frawley (J.K. Simmons), producer Jess Oppenheimer (Tony Hale), and writers Madelyn Pugh (Alia Shawkat) and Bob Carroll (Jake Lacy).

The Hollywood tell-all structure and Sorkin's insistence on packing way too much of Lucy and Desi's relationship troubles into the film make "Being the Ricardos" difficult to enjoy.  While I appreciate Sorkin's recreations of the "I Love Lucy" production process, and his habitual fabrication of events doesn't ring too false this time around, the unrelenting cynicism of the piece and the downbeat, sober ending were hard to take.   The film is saved by its performances, and I'm ultimately happy that Sorkin went with more seasoned actors who could bring some real drama to the screen.  The MVP here is Nina Arianda as Vivian Vance, who is fed up with always being portrayed as a frump, and is easily the most human and sympathetic figure in the film.  And it takes a while to percolate, but I do think that this version of Lucille Ball is one of Sorkin's better female characters.  I appreciate how intelligent and uncompromising she's allowed to be, in stark contrast to the similar Tammy Faye Bakker from "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" earlier this year. 

Now on to "Don't Look Up," which is Adam McKay's earnest attempt to make something akin to a modern day "Dr. Strangelove" about the threat of climate change.  Initially I thought that the film was playing it too broad, following characters who were very larger-than-life, and events that were increasingly absurd, leading up to a doomsday scenario.  But then I thought about Peter Sellers hamming it up in "Dr. Strangelove," and "fighting in the war room," and I managed to get on the same wavelength with "Don't Look Up."  I don't think it's entirely successful in its satire, but I did enjoy it very much, if only for the opportunity to see actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, and Meryl Streep embrace their full comedic potential.

So, the world is in peril due to a comet heading toward Earth, identified by a PhD candidate, Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) and her professor Dr. Mindy (DiCaprio).  They alert everyone they can, including the President, Jean Orlean (Meryl Streep).  Alas, they're given the brushoff by her son and Chief of Staff, Jason (Jonah Hill), so they try the media next - namely talk show hosts Brie (Cate Blanchette) and Jack (Tyler Perry).  The public doesn't take it seriously, and the situation escalates.  The ensemble cast includes a Mark Rylance as an evil tech billionaire, Timothee Chalamet as a young miscreant with a heart of gold, Melanie Lynskey as Mindy's wife, Rob Morgan as the government's head of planetary defense, Ariana Grande as a pop star, and Ron Perman as a designated hero.     

McKay manages to thread the needle, keeping the film from being neither too silly nor too angry.  The poignant moments are poignant, and the comedy is pretty funny.  I think the best decision was having Streep play the Trump analogue, with Jonah Hill stealing every scene as her annoying toady, and then to use them both pretty sparingly.  I deeply disliked McKay's last film "Veep," and I think that he avoided the worst of that film's snarky, self-satisfied, disdainfulness here by focusing more on the good, hopeful, decent people who are trying to do the responsible thing against all odds.  It's terribly sweet, somehow, to see DiCaprio and Lawrence playing a couple of ordinary dopes who nobody will listen to.  

"Don't Look Up" is very predictable and very on-the-nose in its allegory, to the point where it feels like its creators were holding back at certain points.  It's a good movie, and should be lauded for its ambition and its daring, but it's never in danger of being a great one.  I wasn't looking forward to its release because I thought the subject matter would be darker and more emotionally upsetting, but this is almost too gentle in its approach - and too easy to ignore.    

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