Meryl Streep can do anything. But, then again, after 19 Oscar nominations and a lifetime of sublime work, we already knew that. Yet, The Movie Mensch believes that Streep likes to challenge herself and her latest test of her talent has arrived in the form of Ricki and the Flash.
Streep stars as the title character, who is an aging rock and roll band lead singer who left behind a husband and a family in Indiana decades prior in pursuit of fame and fortune. Things have not worked out all that well for Ricki — as we meet her, she and her group are the house band at a dive bar in Tarzana, California and she’s working in a grocery store to try and pay the bills.
When her ex-husband Pete (the always affable Kevin Kline) calls and says that their daughter Julie’s (Mamie Gummer, Streep’s real-life daughter) husband has left her for another woman and that she is seriously falling apart, Ricki gets on an airplane and heads back to Indiana. Although she does not feel prepared or capable of being a “mother” after a few decades, Ricki arrives at Pete’s house and the drama (and comedy) begins.
Ricki and the Flash has much more going for it than simply a leading lady who can do absolutely anything. It is from a script by Diablo Cody (Juno) and directed by Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia).
What’s fascinating about Ricki and the Flash is that it truly feels like a Cody film, and less like a Demme picture, in terms of tonal stamps. Her humor, familial drama and penchant for spotlighting characters who have been dealt a hand of cards that don’t come from the top of the deck are all front and center in her latest. But what she seems to do with them in her script, unfortunately, is glaze over any true chance at emotional growth and redemption in favor of quick fixes and plot speedways towards the finish.
There should have been more time spent with Streep and Gummed — their scenes were electric and the highlight of the film. There are not enough of them. And if Ricki and the Flash had truly been more about the mother and daughter relationship and less about the mother and her failed rock and roll dreams, it would have been a much more resonant film.
There are subplots with her two sons that she left behind that feel straight out of a movie of the week and don’t have the weight that one expects from a drama with this kind of emotional baggage undercurrent.
Still, it is highly entertaining and Streep puts on another show proving that she is our greatest living actress today. The audience pulls for Ricki and hopes that she can pull it together, or at the least have some sort of impact on the lives she deserted. With Streep in Ricki’s driver’s seat, we get a powerhouse performance from a character that could have been solely two-dimensional in another thespian’s hands.
The biggest surprise of the entire rock and roll familial dramedy is Rick Springfield. The ’80s rocker plays The Flash’s lead guitarist and a love interest for Ricki. Springfield plays Greg as a steady rock that has the potential to ground the harried hurricane of emotional storm that is Ricki. The former General Hospital star is a cinematic revelation.
Grade: B-