I have a lot of respect for Jonathan Demme. He directed one of the all time great concert movies, Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense; and he directed one of the all time great movies of any genre, The Silence of the Lambs. Which begs the question, what on Earth attracted him to Diablo Cody’s script for Ricki and the Flash? Indeed, what on Earth attracted silver screen heavy weights, Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline to the project? Clearly it looked much better on paper.
Cody’s script about an aging Lita Ford-type rocker who fritters her life away in rock’n’roll while neglecting her responsibility to her three children has little going for it. The story has Ricki making a belated attempt to reconnect with her adult children after her daughter suffers a messy, emotionally damaging divorce. The tension that exists between Ricki and her cynical and sardonic children, and her hard working well-to-do ex-husband and his new wife, is excruciating for the most part. There’s just no getting around the obvious fact that Ricki has made this bed for herself and her family rightly hates her for it. Her feeble attempts to make it right are both sad and pathetic and watching her do it is torturous for the audience. A strange mix for a film which presents itself as lightweight entertainment.
The one pleasant surprise in the movie is the inclusion of Rick Springfield. It’s easy to be cynical about plucking an 80’s pop music heartthrob out of nowhere to play an older version of himself. It seems an unabashed attempt to attract a certain demographic to the movie, and it probably is, but the truth is Springfield gives a heart felt, albeit limited, performance – indeed, he is the heart of the movie.
Streep is unimpressive; merely dishing up a stereotypical cliché of her character and it’s painful to watch her vaudeville performance. Kevin Kline is Kevin Kline.
Finally the film attempts to lambast us with ‘feel good’ ending but after all we’ve endured, it stretches credulity to believe that a happy family could be instantly born through the power of music alone.
Stuart Jamieson
www.rickiandtheflashmovie.com
