Ricki and the Flash ***½ (2015, Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Mamie Gummer, Rick Springfield, Audra McDonald) – Movie Review

Nothing stops Meryl Streep. The three-time Oscar-winner stars as Ricki, a hard-rocking, singing guitar chick who years back gave up everything for her dream of rock-and-roll stardom, which somehow has never happened.

In Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody’s screenplay, Ricki’s long-suffering ex-husband (Kevin Kline) calls her up to give him a hand with their suicidal adult daughter (Streep’s real-life daughter Mamie Gummer) as his new wife’s away. The picky wife (Audra McDonald) turns up early, and the fireworks start. Ricki retires hurt. But the movie has a third act, with a return bout.

Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme’s movie is totally The Meryl Streep Show, and it’s a good one. It could seem a bit like a vanity project, but Streep transcends that idea with a powered-up performance that includes her pretty awesome live performance of various standards.

It’s a shame that Kline hardly gets a look in, throwing away most of his dialogue in an appealing but dangerously low-key performance, and Gummer doesn’t fare much better, seeming just sullen and unlikeable rather than sick. However, Rick Springfield manages to carve out some space and find his niche as the fellow Flash band member in love with the self-obsessed Ricki.

Broke and playing humble bars to small crowds, but still relentlessly playing on, Ricki says she is returning home to make things right with her family she abandoned years ago, but actually everything is still all about her.

Cody’s screenplay is very likeable with good characters and good dialogue, though there are lots of loose ends she hasn’t managed to sort out. Ricki’s character varies between being right wing and liberal in a most unconvincing way. OK, she’s contradictory, but we must know who she is as we get to know her.

For example, it turns out one of Ricki’s sons (Ben Platt) is gay, and Ricki is initially smart and sarcastic, but when she is confronted by his boyfriend, she’s sweet and nice to him. Not only does this seem unlikely, but it is inconsistent. The gay stuff is rushed and feels forced, ends up peripheral, needing a couple of extra scenes to make it work.

Finally Rikki is made out to be far too warm hearted, a bit saintly, a bit mother earth. this is hard to take. But Streep ploughs confidently ahead and overcomes even this challenge. When ex-stripper Cody was at the University of Iowa gaining a degree in media studies, they probably encouraged one more re-write when you finally think the script is perfect. That’s what this one needs. A trim at the end would be good too. It finishes strongly, then it carries on, less strongly. Less is always more.

Nevertheless, this is still a hugely entertaining, uplifting comedy drama. And Streep could swing another Oscar nomination.

Diablo Cody won an Oscar for Juno, Demme for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Streep for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Sophie’s Choice (1982), The Iron Lady (2011).

It’s the third time Gummer and Streep have filmed together, after Heartburn (1986) and Evening (2007). It’s the third film for Streep and Kline after Sophie’s Choice (1982) and A Prairie Home Companion (2006).

The story is loosely based on Cody’s rock singer mother-in-law. Cody appears in a cameo as a bar patron on the dancing floor.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

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