Monday 24 August 2015

Film Review: "Ricki and the Flash" (2015).


"Get Ready to Rock. Get Ready to Love. Get Ready for Ricki." This is Ricki and the Flash. This musical comedy-drama film directed by Jonathan Demme, and written by Diablo Cody. Years after Ricki follows her passion and becomes a rockstar, circumstances force her to return to her estranged family. While she tries to endear herself to them, they do not immediately take to her.

Cody penned a script inspired in part by her mother-in-law Terry Cieri, who has fronted a New Jersey bar band for years. Cody said, "I watched her on stage so many times, and I thought to myself, 'This woman's life is a movie.'" Cody specifically wrote the role of Ricki with Streep in her mind noting that actresses over 50 in Hollywood typically don't get complicated parts. By early October 2014, Meryl Streep, Mamie Gummer, Kevin Kline, Sebastian Stan, Audra McDonald, Nick Westrate, Rick Springfield, Ben Platt, and Rick Rosas were cast. In preparation for her role, Streep learned how to play the guitar. At the same time, principal photography commenced, and took place throughout New York. The film is dedicated to Rosas, who passed away from a lung disease shortly after filming. Rosas was a bassist who had a long-time friendship with Neil Young, playing together in The Bluenotes, Crazy Horse and with Young in his solo career. He also collaborated over the years with other bands such as Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

The film stars Streep, Gummer, Kline, Stan, McDonald, Westrate, Springfield, Platt, and Rosas. Streep, Kline, and even Stan are aiming at a very high level, but they do not quite succeed. Streep's a radiant beam of beguiling star power in this stylish muddle. The performances is anything but a home run when clearly it should have been. It only manages to linger on the surface of the joy and pain of being flawed human beings.

Ricki and the Flash is a less-than-engrossing tale of family angst, highlighted by Streep's confident, though one of her weakest, performance and Demme's diminishing stature from Oscar-winning master to lowly studio hack. Demme's movie is so benign - he likes all his characters - it feels like a game of "let's pretend." Ultimately, it's a movie for music lovers--playful, hip and light as a feather. The truth is that the film gets increasingly tiresome. It's a piece of art that slowly diminishes not only the originality and pleasure of the kinds of films it copies, but also the entire school of filmmaking it wants to emulate. Demme does something I've never seen another director do - he made rock musicians and bands anything but cool. The story is as mixed up (yet with an outcome as predictable) as a plate of spaghetti. Apart from the story, the film is like the theme music for a dying era. May not be and should not be everyone's cup of tea, but at the end of it, I felt a guilty affection for all its participants.

Simon says Ricki and the Flash receives:


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