everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

I had not seen this TV movie back when it came out but was on the getTV channel today and our internet was down after the heavy rains over the weekend. So I settled in.This is actually a very well made movie and the main actors are very authentic. I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s and well remembered the TV show "I Love Lucy." This movie puts it all in a perspective we never knew, and shows that Lucille Ball in real life was a lot more ordinary than we would have guessed from her TV persona.Rachel York is Lucille Ball and Danny Pino is Desi Arnaz. It shows how they met and how they decided to get married quickly when Lucy was back in California while Desi was working in New York.While it can be argued that Desi really did love Lucy he was of Cuban stock and he did not see fidelity as a necessary part of his marriage. This was a recurring thorn for Lucy and it plus his drinking and gambling finally resulted in their divorce. However in their heyday they had an extremely successful TV run and their fan base was so loyal some businesses posted signs "We are now closed on Monday evenings, we love Lucy." Plus they formed Desilu Studios which produced a number of other very successful shows. They remained friends after their divorce.

"Lucy" the movie, failed to live up to the promise of it's commercials, which featured recreated scenes from the famous "I Love Lucy" series.The over long film juggled facts and dates to the point that any real Lucy fan watching couldn't help but spend the entire 3 hours raging about all that they got wrong or changed. So Buster Keaton readied the couple for their vaudeville act? Funny, Desi's friend Pepito the clown has always been credited in every biography of the couple I've ever read. They've got Lucy as a blonde years after she went red - where was the movie "Too many Girls" for which MGM imported Desi from NY, and during the making of which the couple began dating? Yeah, I'm nit-picking, but the film was so filled with little blunders like that! The kind of things that drive any hard core Lucy fan crazy! I could've over looked much of this had the producers provided me with a more believable Lucy - but Miss York frankly did not cut it. Lucy was as famous for her beauty as for her talent, and Miss York is simply not even in her league.With a running time of 3 hours, they had time to get it right - that they chose not to do so amazes me! All in all, a really tedious waste of viewing time. If you love Lucy - Avoid it!

This is clearly a made-for-television movie. The plot line follows the rhythm that allows for commercial advertising breaks. Nonetheless, the form suits the content: how the real-life coupling of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz led to the birth of a new comedic genre - the sitcom.Ball's goofy and good-natured ability to recount funny stories foreshadowed the eventual development of her unique physical humour. Rachel York uses her considerable talents effectively in her inspired performance as this very contemporary clown. Did Lucille Ball really receive coaching from Buster Keaton and Red Skelton or is this merely a fictional embellishment, creating a bridge between her mostly unknown film roles and her emergence as a television star?"Lucy" wisely does not recreate many scenes from the original "I Love Lucy" shows, with the stunning exception of the grape-stomping scene. Though the intervening years have provided TV and movie audiences with new comedians, the verve and the brilliance of Lucille Ball, as played in that particular scene, is well worth revisiting.

I have no idea how historically accurate the story is. But to my own surprise, I found myself crying through most of this movie. Gradually--very gradually--the (I must say amazing) actress Rachel York uncannily takes on the appearance and personae of the Lucille Ball we all knew from the wildly popular sitcom people my age grew up with many years ago. Though we read stories of the tensions between Ball and her husband/TV co-star, Desi Arnez, none of it seemed very real. This drama drives it home. It is a true tragi-comedy. Neither of these two enormously talented personalities come across as villains.It is, in the end, simply a tragic clash of cultures.All performers in this production are top notch.