“She wasn’t a genius,” says one talking-head commentator early on in Lucy and Desi, Amy Poehler’s new bio-doc tribute to the illustrious creative partnership between the sitcom’s queen and king, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. That sounds like a swipe out of joint with the film’s overall attitude of soft-focus hagiography, but it’s meant as a testament to her indefatigable self-starter ethic. Ball’s success wasn’t effortless, we’re told, due to some innate talent she could activate as she pleased. Far from a God-given gift, her rubber-faced comedic chops were honed over years of teeth-cutting and stripe-earning on stage. Everything she had – the fame, the fortune, a seat at the head of the table in the largest independent studio in Hollywood – she got by working herself to the bone.
It’s easy to see why Ball would be an aspirational figure for someone like Poehler, a fellow female comedian who triumphed over a male-dominated showbiz architecture by making a spectacular fool of herself on a weekly basis. Her assertive confidence behind the scenes, coupled with a bold un-self-seriousness at a time when the feminine ideal was that of the domestic goddess, made her a role model to a generation of cut-ups including Carol Burnett and Bette Midler. They both sit for Poehler’s camera to sing the praises of their idol, adding their voices to a chorus of adulation that drowns out everything else. The evident bounty of affection for Ball, however well-founded, doesn’t just leave Arnaz as a supporting character in this ostensible double portrait. It lends the whole production the syrupy taste of PR, like we’re watching a special-feature supplement on the home-video release of Being the Ricardos. (Surely not coincidentally, both titles are Amazon properties.)
