Watching Ricki and the Flash is a little like gate-crashing the swankiest party in the world. All the best people are there: the divine Kevin Kline, the always-tart Diablo Cody, and – Hell, yes! – Meryl Streep.
However, once you get past all that A-list glitz and heavyweight talent, damn if this shindig isn't lacking something in the lustre department. As with Cody's screenplay for Young Adult, Ricki's flair for excruciating dramedy occasionally gets the better of the project.
Streep, who learned some mean guitar licks to ensure a inevitable record 20th Oscar nomination, plays the failed titular rocker who, long ago, abandoned her husband and three children in pursuit of superstardom. But things have not quite gone according to plan. As the film opens, Ricki’s career has ended with a residency in a biker bar, supplemented by a day job bagging groceries.
A call from her ex-husband Pete (Klein) brings the bedraggled musician to Indianapolis, where her daughter Julie (played by Mamie Gummer, Streep’s real-life offspring) has sank into a deep post-divorce depression. Might the situation give Ricki a final chance to be a mom to her three estranged grown-up children?
Well, not exactly. Ricki and the Flash is too authentic for the full fairytale ending. Our heroine may be capable of belting out a decent Springsteen cover, but she's seldom cuddly.
Ricki is, rather, the kind of anti-Hollywood flag- flyer who voted for George W Bush twice and laments the state of the nation since “You know who” became president. She confuses ALS with Alzheimer’s. She gives her on-again, off-again lead guitarist lover (Rick Springfield, who implausibly walks off with the movie) a hell of a time.
It’s a complex part: one that perhaps only Cody could have written and that only Streep could embody. It’s unfortunate that halfway through, the film seems to run out of things to do with Ricki. It’s even more unfortunate that director Jonathan Demme has chosen to run with far too many full- length musical numbers where one or two would have sufficed.
Still, you’d be hard-pressed to fault a single performance, and Declan Quinn’s cinematography enlivens even the dankest of barrooms.
