The unlikely partnership and enduring legacy of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz is at the heart of Lucy and Desi, a new documentary from director Amy Poehler. The film will premiere on Amazon Prime Video March 4.
Touted as “an insightful and intimate peek behind the curtain” of the “remarkable trailblazers,” the documentary explores the creatively fruitful and often tumultuous relationship between the couple, who rose to stardom on the groundbreaking 1950s sitcom, I Love Lucy.
“Defying the odds, they re-invented the medium, on the screen and behind the cameras,” the film’s synopsis notes. “The foundation of I Love Lucy was the constant rupture and repair of unconditional love. What Lucy and Desi couldn’t make work with each other, they gave to the rest of the world.”
The trailer teases appearances from numerous notable figures interviewed for the documentary — including Norman Lear, Carol Burnett and Bette Midler. The couple’s children, Desi Arnaz Jr. and Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill, are also featured.
“They established their own studio. That’s an enormous operation,” Lear notes in the trailer. “She was fearless,” adds Burnett, while Midler quips, “You realized, women can do this, too!”
Lucy and Desi premiered at Sundance earlier this year, where Poehler told Variety she was interested in providing deeper insight into the life of the iconic TV couple. “Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, over the years, have been kind of flattened out and made two-dimensional,” Poehler said. “I was really interested in seeing the people behind the images.”
The documentary is the second film about Ball and Arnaz to emerge in recent months. Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem embodied portrayed the couple in Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos, which premiered on Prime Video in December. That film recently netted Bardem an Oscar nomination for Best Actor and Kidman a nod for Best Actress.
From Rolling Stone US
