I have been a fan of the "I LOVE LUCY" show since I was a kid in the 70's, watching the re runs.

Over the years I have picked up the occasional tid bits of information about them, but never really went looking. I was eager to watch this movie, and admittedly did learn a lot.

What was missing for me, was the emotional attachment that I was very surprised I did not feel towards the movie characters considering the fond feelings and memories I have towards the original people.

I felt like Nicole Kidman just lacked something that Lucille Ball had.

I dont know if it was her acting as much as it was a screenplay that didn't quite reach the depth of, or really capture, the obviously intense time during that particular week of their lives. The movie did show a few flashbacks to give the audience a chance to connect and understand the characters more deeply but for me it did not do that. It only left me feeling more disengaged. Both of them, I am positive, had interesting and incredible lives, just by the lone fact of the time period they lived in. Everyone who lived during that time has a shared understanding that we , as later generations just dont get. The sreenplay fails to fully make the audience FEEL what that timeframe in our history felt like, and todays generations cant really emotionally connect without understanding THAT first. For me, That was the first step backwards. Without Kidman bringing to life, Lucy, I was emotionally absent.

As usual, I am in the minority again about my opinion of the actor Bardem. I actually think he did better than Kidman in bringing his character to life. In fact, it was both male actors (Bardem as Desi and Simmons playing Fred) that blew the 2 main female leads, (kidman as Lucy and Arianda as Ethel)out of the water.

It was an okay movie. A little stiff, a little unemotional. And it did make me really crave for someone to step up and write a great mini series about Desi and Lucy. Because I dont think you have a chance of capturing them in a 2 hour movie.

And of course, maybe hire an unknown yet exceptional actress to play Lucy. There are plenty to choose from.

I really wanted to like this movie! I love Nicole & Javier and I of course am an I Love Lucy fan. But this just did not work for me. I couldn't see the characters, only the actors. It felt off with everything, like a puzzle that didn't fit. Maybe I'm not an Aaron Sorkin fan? I'm not sure but this one wasn't my favorite and I couldn't finish it unfortunately.

I can't say enough on just how boring and uninteresting this snooze-fest is. "Being the Ricardos" is miscast, poorly directed, the storyline is choppy, and lacks any chemistry between Kidman and Bardem as Lucy and Desi. And trying to suspend disbelief that Nicole Kidman is Lucille Ball is not going to happen. I can't get past that puffy prosthetic-riddled face. Lucille Ball was a beautiful woman, Kidman looks like a hungover alcoholic. And Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz is no prize either. It was good that Aaron Sorkin gave us a peek behind the scenes, and showed us how bringing a TV show to life is more than just memorizing lines from a script. There's a lot of back and forth, plus creative differences involved to get to the finished product. But that's where any interest ended for me. Sorkin is a much better writer than he is a director.

Sorkin's simply not a good enough director to bring out the intimate and personal details of the characters he's directing. Neither Lucy nor Desi had any emotional depth. Kidman was wooden and unconvincing as Lucille Ball, and Bardem was struggling to find his footing as Desi Arnaz, and that's strange to see with him. J. K. Simmons was the absolute best thing in this flailing mess of a film as Fred Mertz, and an honorable mention goes to Tony Hale as Jess Oppenheimer.

I think if Sorkin just stayed with the one week "Red Scare" and the behind-the-scenes drama, "Being the Ricardos" would have been a much MUCH better film (Lucille Ball was outed by radio news legend Walter Winchell, as a one-time member of the Communist Party. Then Arnaz is accused of cheating on Lucy by the tabloids, plus, Ball in real-life was pregnant and wanted her pregnancy written into the show, which during this puritanical era, was problematic for the network because they preferred its viewers to remain ignorant of how babies are made).

Sorkin should have played to his strengths, instead of clumsily time-jumping from when Lucy and Desi first met and Ball's earlier career, back to their current reality of their strained marriage and the very real possibility of losing the one thing they're on the same page with during the communist issue with Lucy, and that's their show, "I Love Lucy.

But don't get me started with that puzzlingly weird faux documentary silliness interspersed within "Being the Ricardos", where Sorkin had actors playing older versions of those who worked on "I Love Lucy". Was this a docudrama, a documentary or a mockumentary? I have no idea, but what I do know is, that decision was a whole lot of nonsense.

"Being the Ricardos" could have been a great film, but it is a glaring example of when someone with an abundance of screenwriting talent, should have handed the casting and directing over to someone else who was better at it. Sorkin had too many hats and truthfully, only one of them fit. It's a thoroughly unsatisfying film with glaring flaws and an identity crisis.