RICKI AND THE FLASH
Meryl Streep rocks it
It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that Meryl Streep transforms into a convincing barroom musician in the film Ricki and the Flash. What is amazing is that Diablo Cody wrote the role specifically for the actress.
“Honestly, I don’t usually write scripts with actors in mind, because the odds of getting them are so rare,” says the 37- year- old writer, best known for her Oscar- winning screenplay Juno, about a teenager’s unplanned pregnancy.
“I kept thinking about ( Streep) when I was doing the character, but I have to admit I was shocked when she agreed to do it.”
In the comedy- drama directed by Jonathan Demme, Streep plays Ricki, a singer who abandons her family early on to pursue the dream of becoming a rock star.
Ricki faces the consequences of her decision decades later, when a crisis forces her to return home to deal with her three grown- up children suffering abandonment issues.
Cody’s good fortune continued when Streep’s daughter Mamie Gummer followed her mom to the cast, and Demme signed on to direct. Kevin Kline — who starred with Streep in the 1982 romance Sophie’s Choice — immediately said yes to the role of Ricki’s long- suffering ex- husband, and Rick Springfield, famous for his 1981 hit single Jessie’s Girl, was enthused to play Ricki’s guitarist and love interest.
Naturally, Streep made all the right moves defining her role as a conflicted singer and mom. What impressed Cody was Streep’s rehearsal commitment to getting her stage presence right.
“Meryl was fearless, especially learning a new instrument and playing with a bunch of experienced professionals,” Cody says from New York. “I would have been shaking in my boots, but eventually she was the queen of the stage.”
A zealous Springfield fan, Cody admits she was also star struck during the shoot when the former teen idol showed up to do his scenes.
“I don’t have his autograph yet, but it’s not too late,” she says of Springfield. “I was totally obsessed with him. He would walk on set and there would be this shiver.”
All things considered, Cody is pleased and relieved that the film worked, since Ricki is loosely based on her mother- in- law Terry, who rocks out weekly with her group.
“My husband’s mom is amazing and still gigging every weekend on the Jersey Shore,” Cody says. “But she’s an awesome mom, so none of the personal stuff is based on her. But she’s definitely an inspiration.”
To appease her mother- in- law even more, Terry was invited to the set of Ricki and the Flash and met Streep briefly. “It was a pretty great day,” Cody says.
Some of the 12 rock covers played by Ricki’s group — among them, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ American Girl and Bruce Springsteen’s My Love Will Not Let You Down — were lifted from Terry’s set list. And Cody, also a producer on the film, suggested the addition of some newer songs to Ricki and the Flash’s performance pieces.
“One of the weirder things I wanted was the Lady Gaga song ( Bad Romance) done by the band that loves rock ’ n’ roll,” Cody says. “Terry told me that’s the reality of a bar band. If they want to keep getting hired, they have to learn new songs.”
Maybe the mentality applies to Cody’s decision to accept the new Barbie challenge. Certainly, Juno and her subsequent R- rated scripts for the horror flick Jennifer’s Body and the acidic satire Young Adult were completely different.
So was her directorial debut, Paradise, which was slammed for its indulgences when the comedydrama was released a few years ago.
“I tried that directing thing and I didn’t like it,” Cody says. “I don’t have the Type A personality for it. I am a little too loosey- goosey for directing.”
While Cody’s Juno is hardly a calling card for rewriting a liveaction Barbie biopic, that’s exactly what she’s been up to this summer. Bringing the classic Mattel doll to life on the big screen might require a different sort of creative finesse.
“They want me to do the Barbie movie, so maybe they want something a little offbeat,” says Cody. “Hopefully, I’ll have a refreshing take on her.”
It’s a little known rule of physics that every time Meryl Streep cries, an Oscar nomination drops from the boughs of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In Ricki and the Flash, watch as a single tear forms at the corner of Streep’s left eye. See it glisten, goldenly and portentously. But she deserves it. In her latest role, Streep plays Ricki Rendazzo, a. k. a. Linda Brummell, a California rock chick almost as old as rock itself.
She’s clearly talented — she’s got Rick Springfield on lead guitar, for Pete’s sake, plus a bunch of other bona fide musical legends backing her up as “the Flash” — but Ricki isn’t quitting her day job as a cashier. That’s because she can’t afford to. When she gets a call from ex- husband Pete ( Kevin Kline) with news that her daughter Julie is in trouble, she flies to Indianapolis but can’t afford the cab ride from the airport. Hotel accommodation is also beyond her.
Written by Diablo Cody ( Juno, Young Adult), Ricki and the Flash has several true- life connections. Not least is that Julie is played by Mamie Gummer, Streep’s 32- year- old daughter and one of her four children with longtime husband Don Gummer. It feels like stunt casting but it works, in part because Gummer owns the role.
Julie’s husband has just left her, leaving her suicidally depressed. Ricki, who hasn’t had much to do with her children since leaving the family to pursue dreams of stardom, takes it upon herself to both reconcile with and comfort her daughter. When Ricki’s two sons ( one openly gay, both maternally suspicious) show up for a family dinner, Pete tries to stop the siblings’ sniping by pointing out that the family is “proximal.”
As olive branches go it’s pretty bare, but the guy is nothing if not a peacekeeper. Early reviews of Ricki and the Flash can’t seem to decide whether it’s a great movie or a sappy one. But why not both?
On the one hand, director Jonathan Demme has assembled a kick- ass cast. In addition to the actual musicians backing Ricki, there are such unlikelies/ unknowns as Ben Platt ( bartender Daniel), Sebastian Stan and Nick Westrate as Ricki’s sons, and Audra McDonald ( TV’s Private Practice) as Maureen, Pete’s second wife.
On the other, the emotional beats sometimes feel a bit too pat, and a night of pot- smoking by Ricki and Pete dissolves into fits of giggling that had me wondering if maybe the actors had actually inhaled. And when it all comes together, it just feels right. Characters may sometimes explode into scene- stealing histrionics, but they’re just as likely to back away from the scenerychewing edge.
Ricki the character is a slightly pathetic figure, over 60 and still kicking up her legs in platform heels and tight leather pants. Streep the actor, wearing the same garb, is a revelation. It’s hard to believe that just a halfdozen movies ago she was Margaret Thatcher. And the music is a joy. Demme has always had one foot in the rock world, notably with three films featuring Neil Young.
The musical numbers are lovingly shot and recorded, and function as more than mere space- filler. Drift Away ( a. k. a. I Wanna Get Lost in Your Rock ‘ n’ Roll) in particular operates as both soundtrack and dialogue from its opening line: “Day after day I’m more confused …”
And without giving too much away, this is not a movie in which a lifelong personality suddenly does a 180. Ricki is as Ricki does; by the end of the film the most one can say is that she’s singing the same song in a different key. That’s redemption enough for me.