RIcki and the Flash tells the story of Ricki Redenzo (Meryl Streep), who once upon a time was known simply as Linda. In this other life, she was living in Indiana married to Pete (Kevin Kline), and was mother to three children. She left all that behind to pursue her dream of becoming a rockstar. This dream hasn’t really panned out. She does have a regular gig with her band The Flash at a small bar in Tarzana, but she’s struggling both financially and personally. And then one day, Pete calls her out of the blue to ask her to come to Indianapolis to help tend to their daughter Julie (Mamie Gummer), who has been driven into a deep depression after being left by her husband.
There are very few surprises in Ricki and the Flash. It plays out pretty much exactly like you’d expect, the dramatic arc simply an exercise in reiterating the truistic tautology that family is family. But the film makes witnessing these clichés a pleasure, thanks mostly to the overachieving direction of Jonathan Demme, who offers a pseudo-retrospective of some of his best works in this film, and the excellent cast, who all never settle for thin characterizations.
The film is almost averse to conflict. There is certainly conflict there, the story built on years of abandonment issues and shattered dreams. But the film doesn’t really address it head on. It prefers to go at these problems at an angle, playing out their resolutions mostly wordlessly as the characters just get with their lives and do the things that they really want to be doing. Ricki’s mere presence seems to help Julie out. They only have traces of big, dramatic moments. For the most part, they’re just hanging out, finding comfort in the familiarity that’s been deprived of both of them for so long.
This doesn’t make the film exciting, and in the end, it probably leans a little too much on this particular choice. It feels like cheating after a while. But even so, the film is able to make the lack of conflict reasonably entertaining. It’s able to do other things with the tools that the director brings to the table. One could easily point out that Demme is the director of the single greatest concert film ever made, Stop Making Sense. Those skills come to fore in almost every one of the musical performances, which manage to wring all the right emotions and character beats out of the songs.
One could also point out another Demme highpoint, Rachel Getting Married, where the director found interesting post-racial hooks into what appeared to be a simple depiction of a white, affluent family’s drama. It is applied much less here, but the film still features an awareness of economics, politics and race that feels distinct in mainstream cinema. And the cast is predictably great. Meryl Streep is bulletproof, and her scenes with real life daughter Mamie Gummer are actually quite affecting. But everyone in this cast does well. Kevin Kline reminds everyone that he is a really fine actor. And Rick Springfield gets a couple of nice scenes in as well.
Ricki and the Flash isn’t challenging or even really interesting cinema. But it is well made and well performed. If a film must adhere to well worn formula, it should at least try to apply as much craft to these formulaic happenings as possible. And you can clearly see that here. Demme and his cast elevate the material to a point where it can be easy to ignore the predictable nature of its events. It overwhelms the clichés with a tidal wave of talent.
My Rating:
