If she wasn’t so busy with her career as an Oscar-winning actress, Meryl Steep could be a rock star. If you’re skeptical, just watch the plentiful performance sequences in Ricki and the Flash, an otherwise generic melodrama about female empowerment and family dysfunction.
As the lead singer in a cover band at a San Fernando Valley nightclub, Streep has both the voice and the stage presence to effortlessly pull off a version of Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away” that will give you chills. Then she throws in some Bruce Springsteen, U2, Tom Petty, and Lady Gaga for good measure.
When she’s not playing guitar heroine for the bar patrons, however, Ricki’s personal life is a mess. She toils away as a supermarket checkout clerk, trying to mask her past mistakes that have led to an estrangement from her family.
Her worlds collide after Ricki gets a call from her ex-husband, Pete (Kevin Kline), reporting that their daughter (Mamie Gummer) is in crisis mode after breaking up with her fiance. So Ricki heads home to sort things out, discovering all she missed by pursuing her dreams of stardom.
The ensuing dirty laundry includes uncomfortable exchanges with Pete’s new wife (Audra McDonald) and Ricki’s son (Sebastian Stan) about his impending marriage, to which she’s unlikely to get an invite.
The film’s Oscar-winning pedigree extends to director Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs), whose resume includes a handful of music documentaries, and screenwriter Diablo Cody (Juno), who tosses in some sharp one-liners and potent observations amid the predictable plotting.
Ricki and the Flash gives Streep a chance to work for the first time with Gummer, her real-life daughter, and the two have some nice scenes together even if Gummer’s character starts to fade curiously into the background in the third act.
The script features some familiar themes (and plenty of bickering), along with a tendency to resolve confrontations too conveniently. Yet the film manages some effective character-driven moments thanks mostly to an ensemble that brings welcome depth and complexity to the type of fractured-family dynamics we’ve seen before.
But it’s Streep who carries this story of regret and redemption by fully inhabiting a character who looks as confident on stage as she does uncomfortable off of it. In other words, her performance finds the right rhythm, but also captures Ricki’s soul.
