I’ve always had my reservations about Sorkin as a director. His scripts tend to be better than his final products. Those druthers started to fade with the moving “Trial of the Chicago 7” and are now completely gone after “Being the Ricardos.” His vision of ‘50s TV production is spot-on — nostalgic, quick, boozy, but without the glamor of Hollywood movie-making.

The things Sorkin is criticised for — grand speeches, an earnest streak — are the things that make his work sing when the context is right. The drama of this legendary TV couple gives him plenty of material to do some of his best work.

While it lacks a strong overall narrative focus, "Ricardos" makes the most of a strong supporting cast and Sorkin’s excellent, banter-filled script.

Anyone curious about the mechanics of a pioneering sitcom will be entertained by Being the Ricardos, and there’s no denying that the performances offer much to savor. I just wish there was more of a sense of the director serving the subject rather than making the subject serve him.

It’s just one symptom of the disease afflicting Being the Ricardos, which tries too hard to pack too much in, and ends up incapable of saying much at all as a result, which is baffling, because it’s such a talky movie. There’s a great film to be made about these two iconic television talents and their respective egos. Unfortunately, Sorkin’s own ego casts too large a shadow here for us to be able to see it.

While the filmmaker’s affection for full circle moments can be charming, within the context of “Being the Ricardos,” it all feels like a cheat. The film might not opt to get as obvious as Lucy muttering to herself, “Yes, I do love Lucy!,” but it gets damn well close, and that’s sillier than anything Ball ever dreamed up.

Like all Aaron Sorkin-penned characters, this film’s version of Lucille Ball is a mouthpiece for his brand of smarmy, know-it-all sarcasm.

A film about so many different things that it ends up about none of them, Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos is visually inert, and features an emotionally stifled performance from Nicole Kidman as the lively Lucille Ball. Javier Bardem brings energy to Desi Arnaz, but it isn’t enough to pick the disjointed pieces up off the floor.

An oddity, in which all the characters seem to be avatars for the loquacious Sorkin himself.

A Wikipedia entry fed into what can only be called The Sorkinator, but missing the wit module, Being the Ricardos is cultural-television-marital history flattened into a babbling stream of airless, horribly shot scenes that never come close to the glorious timing of a single comic exchange on “I Love Lucy.”