My running joke about Meryl Streep is she’s so amazing she gets nominated for an Oscar even in years when she wasn’t in any movies. She’s one of the best actors, and and quite possibly the most decorated, ever.
When one thinks about Streep’s incredible body of work, her singing doesn’t immediately come to mind — but over the last 25 years, has any mainstream actress had more musical parts than Meryl Streep?
She sang in “Postcards From the Edge.” She sang in “Ironweed.” She sang in “A Prairie Home Companion.” She sang in “Mamma Mia.” She sang in Sondheim’s “Into the Woods.”
Now comes “Ricki and the Flash,” and I gotta say, Meryl Streep’s pushin’ it this time around. I was on the fence most of the way through this amiable and predictable rock ‘n’ roll fable until one of the final numbers performed by Streep as the Ricki of Ricki and the Flash — and then she got me.
Streep doing Springsteen? In lesser hands (and voice), that sounds like something from the “Funny or Die” playbook. But I’ll be damned if it didn’t work.
“Ricki and the Flash” is directed by the Oscar-winning Jonathan Demme (“The Silence of the Lambs”), with a screenplay by the Oscar-winning Diablo Cody (“Juno”) and it stars Streep and fellow Oscar winner Kevin Kline — and though this is the cinematic equivalent of an album of cover tunes by artists who have created much more dazzling original work, it’s a sweet, smart and funny confection.
Of course the regal Streep has played down-and-out characters before, but she’s not a thousand percent believable as Ricki, a late-middle-age rocker who dresses like it’s 1990, has a regular gig at a dumpy bar in Tarzana, California, and supplements that meager paycheck by working as a cashier at a supermarket where the boss is half her age.
Ricki looks and moves a little like Ann Wilson of Heart or Stevie Nicks, without the gold records, the riches and the adoration. She’s good at what she does in the way Kevin Costner’s character was good at what he does in “Bull Durham” — better than just about everybody, but not quite special enough to make it to The Show.
After we meet Ricki and her bandmates — including a very good Rick Springfield as her lead guitarist and longtime boyfriend — we get the Obligatory Phone Call That Changes Everything. Why, it’s none other than Streep’s “Sophie’s Choice” co-star Kevin Kline on the phone, in the role of Pete, Ricki’s wealthy ex-husband.
Pete lives in a gigantic McMansion in Indianapolis with Maureen (Audra McDonald), his second wife of many years, who has been a full-time mother to Pete and Ricki’s three children: a son who’s about to get married, another son who has come out of the closet, and daughter Julie, who has always been rather fragile and is in the throes of a breakdown after her husband left her. Maureen is conveniently out of town, and Julie really needs a mom. Pete is asking for Ricki’s help.
Time for that rock ‘n’ roll fish to jump out of the water.
Streep’s real-life daughter Mamie Gummer plays Julie — but just because you stack the deck with DNA doesn’t automatically guarantee onscreen chemistry. In this case, however, Streep and Gummer are as natural as can be, whether they’re at each other’s throats, bonding over small shared experiences or teaming up to get Pete to loosen up. (This is the kind of movie where you know it’s only a matter of time before someone finds a stash of pot and says something like, “Who wants to get baked?”)
The skilled veteran Demme alternates dysfunctional family confrontations with easy comedy, expertly peppering in just the right rock tunes along the way. It’s hard not to like Ricki, but the film makes no excuses for her actions. She left her family because she chose rock ‘n’ roll over motherhood and being a traditional wife.
Ricki does make the excellent point that nobody really criticizes seven-time dad Mick Jagger for not being there for his kids. What goes unsaid is Jagger’s selfishness led to some of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll of all time, while Ricki is past 60 and belting out covers of Tom Petty and Pink. But still.
[s3r star=3/4]
TriStar presents a film directed by Jonathan Demme and written by Diablo Cody. Running time: 102 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for thematic material, brief drug content, sexuality and language). Opens Friday at local theaters.
