“Being the Ricardos,” January 29, 2022 (2021), Amazon Prime. Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) ruled over America’s televisions in the 1950s with her weekly comedy, “I Love Lucy,” filmed with her husband Desi Arnez (Javier Bardem) as Ricky Ricardo. With Fred (William Frawley-JK Simmons) and Ethel (Vivian Vance-Nina Ariande) Mertz, they brought a weird Americana into being on the screen. Aaron Sorkin’s film follows them through a tense week where Lucy’s pregnancy and her previous alignment with the Communist Party as a tribute to her grandfather threaten to destroy their unbelievable success while Arnez’s distance and rumored infidelities threaten to destroy the domestic scene their public personas rely on. While solidly presented if not always historically accurate, Kidman gives, in a strange way, a flattened character. Perhaps she was that controlled and flat off screen, but it makes for a rigid and ‘stagey’ presentation. She and Bardem don’t have much chemistry, although I think that’s more a result of her than him. Frawley and Vance were legendarily hostile to one another, and that’s clear. Simmons is really superb. Good supporting work abounds, especially from Alicia Shawkut/Linda Lavin as younger/older writer Madelyn Pugh. As with all of Sorkin’s work, the complexities of politics in America come through, and we are left cheering their use of lies to escape blacklisting while hating their need to falsify their own pasts. I know that Lucy Arnez gushed over Kidman’s performance, but I wish the energy of the two principles had matched the intensity of the story.