Lucy and Desi was reviewed out of the Sundance Film Festival, where it made its world premiere. It'll debut on Prime Video on March 4.
Lucy and Desi, Amy Poehler’s directorial debut, is a brisk documentary about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, which proves surprisingly intriguing in its retelling of well-known facts. While it rarely treads new ground in its exploration of the TV legends, it skirts around familiar, talking-head stylings by focusing not only on the couple’s personal lives, but the way their journeys behind the camera often manifested on screen.
There are plenty of interviews to be found — with comedy experts, contemporaries, and even the couple’s own children — but Poehler, writer Mark Monroe, and editor Robert A. Martinez use them sparingly and effectively. For the most part, they construct their narrative from old tapes and interviews of Ball and Arnaz themselves, creating a feeling of present-ness, as if the late comedy legends were calling in and divulging secrets. Granted, little that they say isn’t already a matter of public record, but the film attempts to put the ball back in their court, offering them a say in their story, albeit indirectly, with a video-essay approach that matches life events with specific scenes and episodes of I Love Lucy, and several of the couple’s other works.
Lucy and Desi is as much a chronicle of the super-producers’ lives as it is an interrogation of the real experiences that informed their comedy, and while the latter aspect rarely pierces the surface, it also comes courtesy of a modern comedy icon in her own right. Poehler, for her part, doesn’t seem concerned with making didactic statements about the couple’s work as a straight retelling of reality, but rather, she uses old TV footage to complement existing tapes, as if these scenes of domesticity were a replacement for the interviews with Ball and Arnaz which she could not shoot herself. However, this approach only goes so far. If old episodes of I Love Lucy are a window into the Ball-Arnaz household, Poehler attempts to discern its interior from a distance, rather than taking a peek inside.
While its analysis may not be rigorous, the film makes up for it with its palpable energy, which arrives as loudly and immediately as the actors themselves in a given TV episode. It approaches Ball and Arnaz with the grandeur of a documentary about legendary heads of state, while its aesthetic (including the heavy atmosphere of composer David Schwartz) is that of modern True Crime awash in flashing lights. Photographs and other objects like audio tapes and written letters abound, rapidly moving and sliding across the screen, as tangible reminders of the duo’s stardom. In its best moments, the visual texture feels like memories flooding back to you. It may not be deep, but it is certainly dazzling.
Despite its breadth of scope, it’s also a marginally more comprehensive look at the specific events covered by Being the Ricardos, Aaron Sorkin’s biopic misfire. The documentary captures the energy that Ball and Arnaz frequently brought to the screen, delivering it in concentrated doses without lingering too long — the film is certainly attention-grabbing — and it only slows down during the more sobering and unfortunate parts of the couple’s domestic story.
If there’s an emotional through line to be found during the Lucy and Desi’s birth-to-death telling, it’s one revealed fittingly in retrospect, after the couple’s infamous divorce: the idea that Ball and Arnaz were better suited as creative partners than as spouses, despite the place they hold in the collective consciousness as one of American television’s most beloved pairings. It’s a harsh truth, and one Poehler only touches on after sweeping you up in its feverish romance, so its fallout lands all the more impactfully when the film finally slows down and switches gears, focusing on more somber territory.
While it may not illuminate new details for those already familiar with Ball and Arnaz, its swift pacing prevents it from simply plodding between known points of reference. It certainly helps that stars like Carol Burnett and Bette Midler show up to tell delightful first-hand stories of their own, thus enhancing the point of view Poehler brings as a Hollywood comedienne for whom Ball undoubtedly paved a path. The movie shines brightest in its personal contextualization of Ball’s comedy — few documentaries have added this much emotional depth to pratfalls — and though it often attempts to do the same for Arnaz, its focus on the Cuban trailblazer is far more limited to dates and facts.
How unfortunately fitting, that a man who the film itself frames as having lived in Ball’s shadow should so end up being eclipsed by her in a story about the two of them. Then again, Lucy and Desi’s 103 minutes zip by so quickly, so vivaciously and so purposefully, that you may not have the time to notice.
from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/33W5pDb
This could be a real lead forward for personal gaming... Revolutionise gaming
No comments:
Post a Comment