Bettmann
There’s certainly an interesting confluence of timings here from the land of Amazon Prime movies, as a few months we got the shaky Being the Ricardos from Aaron Sorkin that dramatized a bunch of key moments in the lives of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. I wonder about the parallel thinking here, but a documentary is always going to come across differently than a feature film, no matter the quality of either.
Lucy and Desi is a documentary from director Amy Poehler and writer Mark Monroe, although of course for documentary features the writing is more like connecting moments of reality. Amy herself never shows up, and it would be interesting to see how she connects to Lucille Ball as a female comic actor — instead we get talking heads from Carol Burnett and Bette Midler, one of whom is a legendary female comic actor and the other was apparently close with Lucille Ball.
Other people show up in logical ways, like kids of the couple Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. But a great amount of the movie is hearing the voices of Lucille and Desi themselves through pretty good quality old tapes of the two of them talking about their lives. So the movie essentially tries to tell the story of them in fits and starts, incorporating the talking heads and tape recordings liberally.
Otherwise we get the same expected beats, Desi’s background and attempts to assimilate, the rise and fall of their sitcom, the Communist nonsense mentioned in Being the Ricardos, and of course, the troublesome waters of their marriage. It does feel like there aren’t many surprises, but a strong point is that the movie is unafraid to get into some of the more sad moments of their lives.
It’s also interesting to hear effective ‘interviews’ from Lucy and Desi in the way you might normally see talking heads, because that is probably the most segments we hear in the documentary. In terms of documentary direction, the movie feels just like any other biographical documentary, really, not anything innovative nor ill-handled. So ultimately Amy Poehler as a documentary director is competent here if not really anything past that.
Of course, I don’t really expect a lot of innovation from a documentary about Lucy and Desi, as the subject of their lives is quite well trod by this point. I suppose the most ‘original’ aspect is the access to those recordings, as it does give us a lot of insight — although since it comes from the source, there’s a patina of warmth over everything.
Which means that this is a highly biased perspective, but I can’t really blame them for it — I was at least glad they explored some of the less savory moments of their lives, so that the movie never quite gets hagiographical. As a documentary, it’s pleasant and entertaining, but nothing extraordinary — if you don’t know much about the famous couple, this will really give a lot of details to their history. But if you do know them already, it’s not really going to add anything you didn’t already know, except more moments of hearing them in ways you may never have done already. And maybe that’s enough.
Lucy and Desi has a run time of 1 hour 43 minutes and is rated PG for thematic elements, smoking and language.
Amazon Studios
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