In "Ricki," Streep plays a fading rock star who makes an awkward return to the family she left years ago in pursuit of her showbiz dreams. Ricki has charisma to spare, but it doesn't count for much when it comes to reconnecting with her children and her ex-husband (played by the reliably affable Kevin Kline), who summons her when their daughter gets divorced and has a breakdown. In an inspired and effective bit of casting, Ricki's daughter Julie is played by Streep's real-life daughter Mamie Gummer. Until recently, Gummer has only been seen in small roles in film and TV (notably as a shrewd lawyer on the CBS drama series "The Good Wife").
Thankfully, Gummer has made her own choices and proven herself to be talented in her own right, rather than distracting the audience by taking after a famous parent's style and mannerisms (I'm looking at you, Colin Hanks and Jaden Smith). Since this is Gummer's highest-profile role to date, you would expect a certain amount of presence regardless of whose daughter she's playing. An early sign of danger in the movie's structure is that as soon as Ricki and Julie have their requisite bonding session, we hardly see Julie again, despite the fact that her issues were the reason for Ricki's return. As cynical as it sounds, one nice day with Mom couldn't possibly have fixed all of her problems. Apparently, Julie's screen time was borrowed so that Ricki could confront the rest of her own demons.
Those demons come in the form of her ex-husband (Kline), his new wife (Broadway and TV star Audra McDonald), and Ricki's on-again/off-again romance with her bandmate (played by '80s heartthrob Rick Springfield). Kline and McDonald have each done substantial work on both stage and screen, so they know how to play big moments as small and vice-versa, but the movie gives them practically no opportunities to do so. The only prior acting I've seen from Springfield was a handful of episodes as a d-bag version of himself on Showtime's dark comedy series "Californication," but he lends genuine charm and sympathy to his scenes with Streep. The worst thing that can happen to a good actor is an incomplete character, and it seems like all of the supporting roles were sacrificed to bring Ricki to life. Every other part is so stereotypical that they're treated as placeholders instead of as people. Ultimately, the film will be remembered for Streep; otherwise, it feels severely imbalanced.
The difficulty of this balancing act falls squarely on Streep herself, and in true Meryl fashion, she is more than capable of rising to the challenge. Her gift of truly inhabiting her characters is on full display here; the vocal and physical energy she brings to Ricki makes her journey (however flawed) feel more authentic. In this role, Streep speaks in a lower, huskier register than usual, and she clears her throat a lot. Whether this is intended to be Ricki's nervous tic, evidence of vocal fry from her years of singing, or some of each, she sounds like a has-been celebrity who is on fire behind a microphone but fumbles without one. Streep also drops the elegance of her standard poise and posture to keep Ricki slouching and fidgeting, making her even more convincing as a career musician who can never quite stand still, literally or figuratively.
Streep's believability is further bolstered by her many contributions to the film's diverse and crowd-pleasing soundtrack. To be honest, I was surprised by the amount of music used in the movie, having expected only an opening number to show Ricki at work and a closing number to reflect what she's learned. Instead, we're given snippets throughout of Streep and the band performing at least 10 different cover songs that range from classic rock to modern pop. After solid work in the movie musicals "Mamma Mia" and "Into The Woods," her voice may not be perfectly suited to all of the songs featured here, but the deliberate cracks and flat notes continue her thoughtful efforts to develop the character.
The standout tune, unsurprisingly, was penned specifically for the film. "Cold One," co-written by indie darling Jenny Lewis, is vibrantly folky without losing its intimacy. I expect the track to receive original-song nominations from all of the major awards (Golden Globe, Oscar, and Grammy). Streep herself will almost certainly earn a Golden Globe nod in the musical/comedy category and will probably win, but I doubt the Academy Awards will look so favorably on her performance when considering the problem areas that sadly define the rest of this promising movie.
One of the first things to examine when weighing a film's pros and cons is an unflinching look at its script. Diablo Cody -- an Academy Award-winner for writing "Juno" and the creator of the Emmy-winning Showtime series "United States Of Tara" -- should have flinched less when working on this particular screenplay. "Juno" and "Tara" took common themes of family dysfunction and found angles to tackle them that were sharp, insightful, and most importantly, fresh. "Ricki" feels entirely too safe and predictable to take the mild peppering of winning one-liners or clever slang seriously. For a woman who's unapologetically gone toe-to-toe with the music business, Ricki -- and the film bearing her name -- has no bite or edge. Frankly, I'm shocked that Cody would put her own name on this, except to brag that she wrote a Meryl Streep movie.
Equally frustrating is the lack of guidance provided by director (and another Oscar winner) Jonathan Demme. His resume includes a potent mix of '80s comedies and '90s dramas -- notably the modern classics "The Silence Of The Lambs" and "Philadelphia" -- but even Demme doesn't seem to know how to classify or even approach the material. Moments that could have been genuinely funny (like the corporate satire of Whole Foods rip-off Total Foods, where radical Ricki works as a cashier) are missed in favor of more obvious punchlines elsewhere. Likewise, moments that could have been genuinely touching (like Ricki making good with her other children, especially the acceptance of her gay son) are glossed over and feel unfinished. This negligence is presumably to keep things moving, but moving toward what? In life, we don't always get closure, but in a movie that already has very few surprises, at least we should get a fully developed story arc.
"Ricki And The Flash," much like Ricki herself, suffers from a major identity crisis. Ricki as a character tries to be a star and a mother, and she struggles to achieve both; "Ricki" as a movie tries to be a comedy and a drama, but it fails to succeed as either. I would be very interested to know if there's a harder-hitting cut of the film out there somewhere, a version that really strives for one genre or the other, and the studio is just hiding it for whatever reason. As it stands, Streep and everyone else involved in this project deserve a better representation of their many collective strengths.
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