Ricki and the Flash (2015)
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Meryl Streep stars as Ricki Rendazzo, a guitar heroine who made a world of mistakes as she followed her dreams of rock-and-roll stardom. Returning home, Ricki gets a shot at redemption and a chance to make things right as she faces the music with her family.
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What critics compared Ricki and the Flash to
While I’m usually very much team Meryl Streep, she’s entirely more enjoyable and interesting to watch singing ABBA’s music in 2008’s campy and mixed-reviewed “Mamma Mia!”.
After "Mamma Mia!" and "Into the Woods," it's not news that Streep is an excellent singer and, having learned to play the guitar for this film, she really tears into standards like "American Girl," "Wooly Bully" and "Keep Playing That Rock 'n' Roll."
As she demonstrated in A Prairie Home Companion, Mamma Mia! and Into the Woods, Streep is a strong and joyful singer.
Her vocal talents have never been fully exploited in movies other than in “Mamma Mia!” and more recently “Into the Woods” so she’s perfect for playing a guitar-shredding mama living the rock ’n’ roll dream.
At best, Ricki and the Flash is a schmaltzy feel-good mediocrity where the major selling point is Meryl Streep as an aging rocker (as if Mamma Mia! wasn’t enough of Streep and pop music).
Streep sings several numbers, as she has onscreen in everything from "Ironweed" to "Postcards from the Edge" to "A Prairie Home Companion" to mega-hit "Mamma Mia!"
Demme wants that jagged, breathless, desperate energy that he achieved in “Rachel Getting Married,” but Cody’s script is too weak to get him there.
See Video: National Geographic's 'Destination Wild' Features Meryl Streep's Butterflies, Angry Birds in Summer Slate (Exclusive Video) (In Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married,” the long musical sequences completely interrupted the flow of the storytelling, but since “Ricki” has so little plot or momentum to speak of, the interludes featuring the titular band have nothing to interrupt.)
In “Ricki and the Flash”, director Jonathan Demme’s first big feature film since 2008’s “Rachel Getting Married”, Meryl Streep plays Ricki, a woman who abandoned her family to follow her dream of becoming a rock star only to end up performing in a dive bar at night with her band The Flash and scraping for cash during the day at a Tarzana, California Whole Foods knock-off.
Unfortunately "Ricki and the Flash" is a long way from Demme's "Rachel Getting Married."
“Ricki and the Flash,” the latest film from director Jonathan Demme (“Rachel Getting Married”), is just quirky enough to redeem its fairly routine tale of regret and redemption.
It’s been seven long years since director Jonathan Demme’s last narrative feature film, “Rachel Getting Married.”
And then there's the film's arguable centerpiece number "This Is Me," an anthem of empowerment and acceptance in the face of adversity delivered by the exceptionally talented Keala Settle (2015's " Ricki and the Flash "), as bearded performer Lettie Lutz (Keala Settle).