Nicole Kidman’s silent treatment is officially over. After Twitter roasted the first Being the Ricardos trailer for barely including any footage of the Oscar-winning actress walking and talking as TV legend, Lucille Ball, Amazon Prime Video has dropped a second look at Aaron Sorkin’s highly-anticipated biopic. And this time, Kidman speaks — a lot. (Watch the trailer above.)
But Sorkin also can’t resist having a bit of fun with social media trolls. In what’s almost certainly a knowing wink to audiences, the new trailer makes us wait for Kidman’s first line of onscreen dialogue. First glimpsed on the set of I Love Lucy, Ball freezes up when it’s her turn to deliver a line. Nearly a full minute elapses before Kidman gets the words out with classic Lucy timing: “Sorry, I got lost for a second.”
Besides providing us with our best view yet of Kidman’s sure-to-be-Oscar nominated performance, the second Being the Ricardos trailer also provides more context for how Sorkin’s film will approach Ball’s life story. The West Wing creator’s script is reportedly set over the course of a week as Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz (played by Javier Bardem), film a classic episode of I Love Lucy. Behind the scenes, though, their marriage is on the verge of falling apart as outside forces threaten their personal and professional lives.
Those outside forces include the well-documented efforts by the FBI to tar Ball as a Communist as part of the Red Scare sweeping through Hollywood. “Does the FBI have any case against Lucy?” we hear Arnaz say, hoping to protect his spouse. Meanwhile, Ball is wrestling with how to handle the fact that Arnaz’s well-documented love affairs are increasingly attracting public attention. “Have you been cheating on me?” she challenges her wayward husband, refusing to put up with his continued non-explanations.
General audiences have yet to see Being the Ricardos, but Ball and Arnaz’s daughter, Lucie Arnaz, has watched Sorkin’s final cut and gives both leads a hearty endorsement. “Nicole Kidman became my mother’s soul,” Arnaz said in a widely-viewing Instagram post. “She crawled into her head — I don’t know how you do that.”
Even with Arnaz’s rave review and a new Kidman-heavy trailer, Being the Ricardos still hasn’t sold everyone on whether Sorkin picked the right actress to portray Ball. Looks like we’ll have to settle the debate when the movie hits theaters and Amazon Prime Video next month.
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Being the Ricardos premieres Dec. 10 in theaters and Dec. 21 on Amazon Prime Video
