Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) and Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem) have the biggest show on American television. But they are facing into crises that have the ability to destroy both their marriage and their show all in the same week. 

With newspapers circling around the stories of Lucille being interviewed by the House Un-American Activities Committee and Desi possibly having an affair they also have the issue of whether or not CBS will let them write Lucille’s pregnancy into the show. 

The way this is presented to us is a master class in concept and story structure. I Love Lucy was filmed on a weekly structure where they film on Friday having spent the week putting the show together and rehearsing. What we see is the news breaking at the beginning of the week and then the key members of the production having to prepare their show under the unusual pressures of these revelations. Bake into that some flashbacks that feed into the behaviour and motivations of our lead couple and you have a mixture of ticking time bombs and creative pressures creating drama. 

Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin the film is filled with his usual trademarks. There is incredibly smart dialogue delivered at pace and excellent insight into the nuts and bolts of delivering a weekly television show. Anyone who has seen The Newsroom or Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip will know that Sorkin is no stranger to the inner workings of television production and he does another excellent job here. 

The film is also a superb showcase for the actors involved. Recently it received Oscar nominations for Actress (Kidman), Actor (Bardem) and Supporting Actor (J.K. Simmons). But the excellent performances do not end there with at least three other actors delivering memorable performances Nina Arianda, Tony Hale and Alia Shawkat as co-star, executive producer and writer of I love Lucy respectively. 

The costumes, make up and sets are also perfect at evoking the era and the difference between the show, the flashbacks and the now. I particularly loved how the film switched between the rehearsals and the show as presented to American audiences. 

But and it is unfortunately a large one, I never felt emotionally connected to the characters or the story. It is all technically immense but I was never invested. Perhaps that is because I have literally no frame of reference for the I Love Lucy show or any of its stars? Or perhaps it is because Sorkin is so focused on delivering his clever story structure and fantastic script he fails to deliver some heart? But either way it meant I admired but never completely enjoyed what I saw.