The film charts Ball and Arnaz’s romance, culminating in iconic sitcom “I Love Lucy.” Per the logline, “Defying the odds, they re-invented the medium, on the screen and behind the cameras. What Lucy and Desi couldn’t make work with each other, they gave to the rest of the world.” “Lucy and Desi” includes interviews with Ball and Arnaz’s children, Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill and Desi Arnaz Jr., as well as Norman Lear, Carol Burnett, and Bette Midler.

Director Poehler exclusively told IndieWire at the IndieWire Studio presented by Adobe that she sought a new “way in” to tell the behind-the-scenes story of beloved sitcom “I Love Lucy.” Related Everything Coming to Prime Video in January 2023 ‘Wildcat’ Directors Encountered the Biggest Obstacles to Completing Their Film Outside of the Rainforest Related Influential Awards Bodies Reshape 2023 Best Documentary Feature Race Oscars 2023: Best Original Score Predictions
“They are so famous and funny and successful, but over the years they’ve kind of become very 2D. They almost became Halloween costumes of people,” Poehler said of Ball and Arnaz. “We use a lot of patriarchal language around innovators, like ‘groundbreakers’ and ‘tastemakers’ and ‘geniuses,’ and I think sometimes we lose the humanness of people, the complicated human parts.” Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. Plus, Poehler sought out to showcase just how influential Arnaz was on “I Love Lucy.” “He was a huge innovator and experimented in the form in ways that few people did,” Poehler said. “Because he was an outsider and a disruptor, he asked questions that people weren’t asking and therefore changed the way we make TV. And the way we make TV is very similar to how Desi first shaped it…His story is often, at best, minimized and, at worst, like he was lucky to be on the show. And he made the show! He created the show!” IndieWire’s review of the documentary called the film “an essential, authentic salute to these trailblazers,” applauding Poehler’s weaving of Ball and Arnaz’s “voices into their own narrative arcs” onscreen. Watch the trailer below.