It’s hard not to get excited about “Ricki and the Flash.” It stars Meryl Streep in what is amazingly a new kind of role for her. It is directed by Jonathan Demme, who has been charming the pants off us since his 1984 Talking Heads documentary “Stop Making Sense.” And it is written by Diablo Cody, whose script for “Juno” (2007) set the bar for witty teen-pregnancy movies everywhere. (Let’s hope that genre doesn’t become too much of a cinematic trend moving forward.) But rather than being an embarrassment of riches, this musical dramedy suffers from too much of a good thing – namely, too much of its titular character at the expense of any true plot or supporting character development. The problem can be traced back to Cody, who may be a better memoirist than screenwriter.
Streep stars as Ricki, who fronts a cover band in Tarzana, California, and ekes out a living as a Whole Foods cashier. With her still-good gams (since when are Streep’s legs so fine?), semi-cornrowed mane, kohl-lined eyes, and reams of silver jewelry, she’s the spitting image of a woman who refuses to sacrifice her dreams even when they’ve sacrificed her. Ricki abandoned her family decades before so she could pursue a rock and roll career that never took off. But when daughter Julie (real-life daughter Mamie Gummer, who needs to stop working in Mommy’s shadow) has a nervous breakdown, Ricki grudgingly steps up to the plate, though she’s not entirely welcome in the Indianapolis McMansion of ex-husband Pete (a sweater vest-clad Kevin Kline) and his tightly wound wife, Maureen (Audra McDonald), who raised Ricki’s three kids.
For all those accolades, Streep doesn’t get her due as a skilled comic actress, and she revels in Ricki’s inconsistencies with expertly timed double takes and cocked eyebrows. Cody, who based the character on her own mother-in-law (a longtime rocker who did not abandon her family), has constructed a beautifully complex woman – a 1970s counterculture siren with a retrogressive chip on her shoulder. Continue Reading →
