Lucy and Desi, the documentary, managed to do what I thought was missing in the Aaron Sorkin film Being the Ricardos: actually tell me more about these two Hollywood icons. The Ricardos movie kind of covered things that I, not a huge fan of I Love Lucy, already knew just by pop culture osmosis. I wanted more info… and this Amazon Prime documentary has that covered.

The doc basically covers Lucy and Desi’s life before, during, and after their marriage. Explaining how they separately got their foot in the door, their time on the show, their time as producers, and then their life after divorce and into older age. It uses a lot of archival interviews so they tell their own story, archival footage from the set of I Love Lucy (sometimes in color), and interviews with female comedians she touched (mainly Carol Burnett).

And while I learned a lot about them, I’m not sure the documentary was super well paced or particularly lively. Maybe blame it on first time director Amy Poehler (who I love so I’m not trying to be mean) but the doc just didn’t sparkle and shine. I watched it with some interest, raised my eyebrow at various facts, and then it ended. I only felt a well of emotions once and that was Desi’s last letter to Lucy.

Certainly it’s not a bad documentary and it is what you want to watch if you want to understand these two and how important they were. But it’s a doc that just so slightly misses the mark… while still being pretty good.

Score: 78