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Ricki and the Flash


RICKI AND THE FLASH
Meryl Streep is an acting powerhouse who has the ability to carry a film on the strength of her talent and her talent alone and that was never more clearly evidenced than in piece of fluff from 2015 called Ricki and the Flash, that despite a problematic screenplay, becomes watchable thanks to the magic of its leading lady.

Streep plays Linda, a woman who abandoned her family many years ago in order to pursue her dream of being a rock and roll star as the lead singer of the title band. Somewhere along the way, Linda/Ricki did actually record an album but clearly never became the next Janis Joplin. As the film opens, the band is headlining a dingy LA bar where the same people come in every night and even though they love Ricki and her band, she is hardly a star. Ricki gets a call from her wealthy ex-husband (Kevin Kline) asking her to fly to Indianapolis because their daughter, Julie (Mamie Gummer) has been dumped by her husband and has tried to commit suicide.

Diablo Cody, who won an Oscar for her screenplay for Juno, provides a story with a vibrant and interesting central character that we love and identify with immediately, despite the way this woman gave up on her family in pursuit of show business success, but the cost of what she did is revealed immediately upon her arrival in Indianapolis and though we feel for Linda/Ricki, we understand where Julie is coming from, who can't even remember the last she saw her mother. Not to mention two sons, one who doesn't want his mother at his wedding and the other who is gay and convinced his mother is a homophobe.

What does ring true here is the relationships between the grown-ups here. The reconnection between Streep and Kline's characters is lovely to watch and we see the struggle it is for Linda/Ricki and just when she and we think there might be a chance for her to pull her family back together, Linda has a fatal confrontation with Kline's second wife (Audra McDonald), who pointedly refers to Julie as "her kid."

There are a couple of very effective scenes of family tension, especially that first dinner out with the entire family where the whole restaurant is watching, not to mention the looks Linda receives when she and boyfriend Greg (Rick Springfield) arrive for her son's wedding. These scenes are rich with tension, that director Jonathan Demme must be credited with, but there several lapses into melodrama that are just a little hard to take.

It was fun seeing Streep and Kline working together again for the first time since Sophie's Choice and McDonald was solid. Gummer, Streep's real life daughter was kind of annoying in a performance that was rather one-note for my tastes and the character's sudden acceptance of Mom near the end was a little hard to believe, but Streep gives a vivid and arresting performance as Ricki of Ricki and the Flash, that makes this movie worth checking out.