“Lucy and Desi” (2022) is an authorized biography about the titular iconic couple’s relationship and career trajectory. Amy Poehler directs her first documentary, which prioritizes the individuals and their relationships over their memorable careers. Because the family gave Poehler access to never-before available home videos and audio tapes, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s voices to tell their own stories.
“Lucy and Desi” opens with a montage of audiotapes and interviews with family and talking heads such as Carol Burnett, Bette Midler, Cuban playwright Eduardo Machado, and National Comedy Center establishing the legends’ credentials for viewers who were born yesterday and are unfamiliar with the syndicated staple sitcom, “I Love Lucy.” The beloved American hit is about a married couple, a nightclub performer and his fame hungry wife as they get into shenanigans with their best friends/neighbors. The film then traces Ball’s childhood to her rise to fame as a B film comedic fixture. The documentary chronicles Arnaz’s ascent from struggling student and performer to a Broadway and Hollywood hit. When they cross paths in “Too Many Girls” (1940), it was not love at first sight until they saw each other socializing after hours. Their careers were still separate, which kept them apart though married and sharing the same family values such as devotion to their birth families and desire to make a family of their own. The roots of the sitcom were born on the radio and the road with a vaudeville show when they combined her comedic genius with his music into a couple act. Until then, no entertaining exec thought audiences would buy them as a married couple. While the sitcom was fiction, their real-life marriage fed into their fictional counterparts. The series was the antecedent to reality television and celebrity lifestyle brands.
Before each section change, intertitles of the place and date are superimposed over establishing location shots. Then the film resumes showing archival clips from television episodes or movies, interviews, and montages of photographs. “Lucy and Desi” is traditional and obeys the standard format of biographical documentaries. Amazon streams it, but it would not be out of place on PBS or any other platform.
“Lucy and Desi” explores issues of race, politics, sexism, and immigration. Hearing Arnaz described as dark is shocking considering that over half a century later, he would be considered Caucasian. It is progressive even by today’s standards that many of the sitcom clips make Lucy’s inability to speak and understand Spanish as a punchline instead of the Spanish speakers. Jokes aside, I would have liked the documentary to delve into whether Ball tried to learn Spanish or Arnaz passed his heritage down to his children. While the parents felt othered, did wealth and fame make the kids feel white at that time? It would have been germane to the documentary because the film alludes to Arnaz trying to recreate his home in his adopted country. What does that look like?
While Arnaz lacked color privilege at that time, his national origin protected Ball from anti-Communist fervor, but “Lucy and Desi” stops there. They were not Communist, but what was their political affiliation? How did others’ perception of Arnaz’s race influence his politics? The documentary misses an opportunity to tell us what kind of people they were and acts as if they otherwise lived in a political vacuum. We get a kumbaya love is love, but they faced obstacles. How did those obstacles translate into civic action? Did they hire people whom the Un-American Activities Committee persecuted or avoid controversy?
An authorized biography means that the family’s involvement, their children, Lucie Arnaz Luckinball and Desi Arnaz, Jr., will put breaks on any negative stories or controversy, including any details stemming from Arnaz’s battle with alcoholism. It is referenced, but not explored. To gain access, filmmakers must compromise, but also one could imagine that Poehler holds her subjects with such reverence that maybe access was enough for her, and it would not occur to her to be more probing.
“Lucy and Desi” waits until after the middle of the film to explore Arnaz’s life before he became a refugee from the Cuban Revolution. Many Cuban refugees tilt conservative because of this trauma. While the film explores Arnaz’s wealthy origins, did his financial struggles as a young adult alter his childhood programming?
“Lucy and Desi” explores how Arnaz did not fit the model of the man that people expected Ball to marry but neglects the reverse. How did the Arnaz’s family feel about Ball? Even for such a circumspect film, there are glimpses of trouble in paradise for the couple with Arnaz’s mother. She blames a miscarriage on Ball not being Catholic. After Arnaz buys a house for her, his mom still finds a way to be disappointed. Did it occur to Poehler that Ball could be seen as the other in her own home?
“Lucy and Desi” may surprise viewers for its melancholic mood considering Poehler’s own storied comedic career and Ball and Arnaz’s pioneering 1950s television sitcom. Pardon some armchair psychoanalysis, but it felt as if Poehler related to Ball and Arnaz’s bond despite their eventual divorce. The film’s theme is unconditional love. Maybe Poehler is using their story as a veiled way to tell her own. Despite the film sympathizing with Ball’s position as a woman taking the lead in a male dominated era, it still succumbs to putting the blame on Ball for working so hard and damaging the relationship. It is surprising that Poehler, a self-professed feminist, would be so hard on Ball as the film unfolded, but it is not internalized misogyny. It maybe self-condemnation and guilt.
“Lucy and Desi” also works hard to put Arnaz in his rightful place as a genius behind the scenes. If Ball got the credit for being the frontwoman in their career, the documentary sympathizes with Arnaz’s conflicting impulses to achieve more and slow down to enjoy it. By the end, I kind of wanted a documentary devoted to him, especially as the film reveals that he was responsible for producing other hits such as “Star Trek” and “Mission Impossible.” The film conveys a well-deserved respect for a man who came up the hard way.
Even as “Lucy and Desi” criticizes the world for ignoring the second spouses of over twenty-five years and trying to preserve the fantasy of their union, the film does nothing to remedy the situation and reinforces the idea of them as a spiritual eternal couple even if not by law. That period in their lives gets less than two minutes. This film reinforces the public’s fantasy of Ball and Arnaz as an eternal couple.
I was eager to watch “Lucy and Desi,” but always feel ambiguity of films that over rely on clips from beloved media. Is the film good or is the subject the hit? I have not consumed a lot of documentaries about the television icons so maybe it is the lead of the back. When compared to other documentaries, it is conventional and adequate. I only left excited about Arnaz and somewhat defensive of Ball’s reputation.
