Lucy (2003)

Just perfect...

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Dramatic license - some hate it, though it is necessary in retelling any life story. In the case of "Lucy", the main points of Lucille Ball's teenage years, early career and 20 year marriage to Desi Arnaz are all included, albeit in a truncated and reworked way.The main emotional points of Lucy's life are made clear: Lucille's struggle to find her niche as an actress, finally blossoming into the brilliant comedienne who made the character Lucy Ricardo a legend; her turbulent, romantic and ultimately impossible marriage to Desi Arnaz; Lucy & Desi creating the first television empire and forever securing their place in history as TV's most memorable sitcom couple.As Lucille Ball, Rachel York does a commendable job. Do not expect to see quite the same miraculous transformation like the one Judy Davis made when playing Judy Garland, but York makes Ball strong-willed yet likable, and is very funny in her own right. Even though her comedic-timing is different than Lucy's, she is still believable. The film never goes into much detail about her perfectionistic behaviour on the set, and her mistreatment of Vivian Vance during the early "I Love Lucy" years, but watching York portray Lucy rehearsing privately is a nice inclusion.Daniel Pino is thinner and less charismatic than the real Desi was, but he does have his own charm and does a mostly decent job with Desi's accent, especially in the opening scene. Madeline Zima was decent, if not overly memorable, as the teen-aged Lucy.Vivian Vance and William Frawley were not featured much, thankfully, since Rebecca Hobbs and Russell Newman were not very convincing in the roles. Not that they aren't good actors in their own right, they just were not all that suited to the people they were playing. Most of the actors were from Austrailia and New Zeland, and the repressed accents are detectable at times.Although the main structure of the film sticks to historical fact, there are many deviations, some for seemingly inexplicable reasons. Jess Oppenheimer, the head writer of Lucy's radio show "My Favourite Husband" which began in 1948, is depicted in this film as arriving on the scene to help with "I Love Lucy" in 1951, completely disregarding the fact that he was the main creator! This movie also depicts Marc Daniels as being the main "I Love Lucy" director for its entire run, completely ignoring the fact that he was replaced by William Asher after the first season! Also, though I figure this was due to budgetary constraints, the Ricardo's are shown to live in the same apartment for their entire stay in New York, when in reality they changed apartments in 1953. The kitchen set is slightly larger and off-scale from the original as well. The Connecticut home looks pretty close to the original, except the right and left sides of the house have been condensed and restructured. There's also Desi talking about buying RKO in 1953, during Lucy's red-scare incident, even though RKO did not hit the market until 1957. These changes well could have been for dramatic license, and the film does work at conveying the main facts, but would it have hurt them to show a bit more respect to Oppenheimer and Asher, two vital figures in "I Love Lucy" history? The biggest gaff comes in the "I Love Lucy" recreation scenes, at least a few of them. It's always risky recreating something that is captured on film and has been seen by billions of people, but even more so when OBVIOUS CHANGES are made. The scene with the giant bread loaf was truncated, and anyone at all familiar with that episode would have noticed the differences right away! The "We're Having A Baby" number was shortened as well, but other than that it was practically dead on. By far the best was the "grape-stomping" scene, with Rachel York really nailing Lucy's mannerisms. The producers made the wise decision not to attempt directly recreating the "Vitametavegamin" and candy factory bits, instead showing the actors rehearse them. These scenes proved effective because of that approach.The film's main fault is that it makes the assumption the viewers already know a great deal about Lucy's life, since much is skimmed over or omitted at all. Overall, though, it gives a decent portrait of Lucy & Desi's marriage, and the factual errors can be overlooked when the character development works effectively.

When I first saw a glimpse of this movie, I quickly noticed the actress who was playing the role of Lucille Ball. Rachel York's portrayal of Lucy is absolutely awful. Lucille Ball was an astounding comedian with incredible talent. To think about a legend like Lucille Ball being portrayed the way she was in the movie is horrendous. I cannot believe out of all the actresses in the world who could play a much better Lucy, the producers decided to get Rachel York. She might be a good actress in other roles but to play the role of Lucille Ball is tough. It is pretty hard to find someone who could resemble Lucille Ball, but they could at least find someone a bit similar in looks and talent. If you noticed York's portrayal of Lucy in episodes of I Love Lucy like the chocolate factory or vitavetavegamin, nothing is similar in any way-her expression, voice, or movement.To top it all off, Danny Pino playing Desi Arnaz is horrible. Pino does not qualify to play as Ricky. He's small and skinny, his accent is unreal, and once again, his acting is unbelievable. Although Fred and Ethel were not similar either, they were not as bad as the characters of Lucy and Ricky.Overall, extremely horrible casting and the story is badly told. If people want to understand the real life situation of Lucille Ball, I suggest watching A&E Biography of Lucy and Desi, read the book from Lucille Ball herself, or PBS' American Masters: Finding Lucy. If you want to see a docudrama, "Before the Laughter" would be a better choice. The casting of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in "Before the Laughter" is much better compared to this. At least, a similar aspect is shown rather than nothing.

The movie starts with the filming of the final episode of 'The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour', a continuation of the very successful 'I Love Lucy' TV series, in 1960. Lucy and Desi are privately calling each other names, some of which we could never have imagined them saying to each other, in an era when such words were not used on TV. In fact, this movie has quite a bit of cursing. Meanwhile, the personas they show to the public appear to tell a different story about the legendary relationship.Then we switch to the 1920s. Young Lucille Ball helps her Uncle George sells hamburgers, and she dates a boy who supposedly smuggles alcohol from Canada. We see the ups and downs of Lucy's early life as she attempts to start an acting career, including an acting class with a young Bette Davis, who already appears to show promise.Forward to 1931. Lucy is good-looking and not afraid to take a pie in the face. These qualities give her enough success in movies that she is able to move her mother, brother and grandfather west to live with her. Then she meets Desi Arnaz and falls in love, knowing that he has many women after him, and that his father thought nothing of being married with a mistress. Despite Desi's reputation, the two end up getting married and moving to a nice ranch, and becoming friends with the likes of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. Desi's mother does not approve of Lucy, while Desi does not care for being considered 'Mr. Ball', since his wife is more famous than he is. World War II contributes to the strain in the relationship, as Desi serves in the military as a musician working for the campaign for War Bonds. Later, however, when the marriage appears headed for an end, a tragedy brings Lucy and Desi together.Television is the future, and Lucy and Desi take advantage of the chance to further their careers. First, they do a Vaudeville act in front of a live audience, proving that they have what it takes to make people laugh. A radio series follows, and then the TV series that ranks as one of the all-time favorites of many. But despite the faces they show to the world, Lucy and Desi still have their problems.Madeline Zima does a fine job as young Lucy. But Rachel York is absolutely wonderful, showing the spark immediately after taking over the role in 1931. She is beautiful (better-looking than the real Lucy, actually), confident and determined, and she has that wonderful personality. And Daniel Pino captures Desi perfectly. The accent and the voice make it sound as if the real Desi is actually speaking to us. In the Vaudeville routine, they are perfect. I wish I could say the same for York's performances in re-enactments of the TV series. She was good, but no one could play Lucy Ricardo like Lucille Ball. Pino, however, does a fine job as Ricky. Unfortunately, the actress playing Vivian Vance falls flat as Ethel. We never do see the actor who played William Frawley in the role of Fred, and he didn't stand out much as Frawley. I did enjoy the scenes where the producers and writers tried to solve various problems the series was having, even before production began.I enjoyed one scene where Lucy trained in silent-movie acting with Buster Keaton, who was considerably older and fatter than he was when he was popular, though the man playing him made him likeable. Other good acting performances: Lucy's African-American maid, who wanted to be in show business but experienced discrimination; Desi's mother (classy, but not on screen very long); Carole Lombard, one of Lucy's closest friends; and Jess Oppenheimer, one of the driving forces behind the TV series.I was afraid this movie would focus too much on the negative, sordid side of the Lucy-Desi romance. This was true during the third hour, but enough of the positives were shown to provide a balance.This movie was based on fact but certain details were changed. In the famous chocolate factory scene with Lucy and Ethel, Lucy spoke a line delivered by a third actress in reality. After Lucy celebrated her company's purchase of RKO in 1958 (according to an on-screen graphic), filming on 'I Love Lucy' continued, even though that series had ended production in 1957, succeeded by the hour-long show set in Connecticut. Another gaffe: an early 1960s Cadillac was shown in a scene from the early 1950s.The following might be SPOILERS: Some of Pino's best scenes came during the third hour of the movie. In one, Pino tearfully explains to the studio audience for the TV show how Lucy is not a Communist and how much he hates Communism. As good as the performance is, the Communists had yet to take over Cuba, and they were in fact enemies of Batista, the dictator who ran the affluent Arnaz family out of Cuba and took away everything they had. Another wonderful scene had Desi and Lucy explaining to their children what divorce meant. The young actress playing Lucie did a fine job there.I enjoyed this movie, in spite of the negatives in the lives of these two wonderful stars.

I have no idea how historically accurate the story is. But to my own surprise, I found myself crying through most of this movie. Gradually--very gradually--the (I must say amazing) actress Rachel York uncannily takes on the appearance and personae of the Lucille Ball we all knew from the wildly popular sitcom people my age grew up with many years ago. Though we read stories of the tensions between Ball and her husband/TV co-star, Desi Arnez, none of it seemed very real. This drama drives it home. It is a true tragi-comedy. Neither of these two enormously talented personalities come across as villains.It is, in the end, simply a tragic clash of cultures.All performers in this production are top notch.