Flashback to 1975 where Jaws was a film with exceptional graphics, the Vietnam War was ending and the Eagles were releasing another universally retained album. Now stay there. This is where elusive, one-time mum Ricki Randozza (Meryl Streep) still exists. Opening with the aging rockstar backed by her grizzled band ‘The Flash’, we witness them performing in a suburban pub in LA, hard and tight as if in Madison Square Garden. After two classic rock hits, they perform the 2000s hit ‘Bad Romance’ for the “kids” out of obligation – and I honestly didn’t know I needed this version of Gaga’s electronica-pop hit until now. However, there is a bittersweet look in Meryl Streep’s eyes behind her plaited side fringe and hardcore eye-makeup. There seems to be a fine line between rock success and washed-up nobody… Besides this hit to the chest that acts as a lingering theme, the film also encompasses great scripting from esteemed Diablo Cody, gorgeously subtle cinematography and outstanding performances across the board.
I’m going to make an assumption that the trailer was a cleverly edited piece of cinema to make you think Meryl Streep’s most recent filmic endeavour was a trashy load of bollocks. Do not be fooled. The film holds more than a woman having a mid-life crisis and turning to music for an escape. In fact, it holds none of that. ‘Ricki and the Flash’ is about a mother who returns to her long-time-no-see family after her daughter’s husband has left her for another woman and the consequences that she has avoided. Hilariously portrayed by Streep’s actual daughter, Julie (Mamie Gummer) is the pyjama-clad, tousled and sarcastic divorcee who wants nothing to do with her mother… until she realises she kind of needs her to get through. Kevin Kline portrays rich yet humbled father and ex-husband to Linda (Ricki’s given name). Written by Diablo Cody (Juno, Jennifer’s Body), she has artfully incorporated social commentary towards sexuality, race and family discourse, without it being a screaming theme – which I feel is admirably present in much of her writing.
Directed by Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Philadelphia (1993) and Rachel Getting Married (2008)), the subtlety of sublime cinematography is something I feel will be severely undervalued in reviews of ‘Ricki and the Flash’. Demme has a talent of making audiences feel that they are a part of the action one moment and then sneaking in and witnessing something secret the next. An example is when after a family marijuana session (casual Thursday night), Kline and Streep have a moment in the kitchen of possibly unresolved emotion and tenderness. The movement between the familial bonding and the private conversation is just as it sounds, open to the public transitioning to a personal one. Through slick panning shots and camera angles, our inclusion into this private moment as an audience feels special, teetering on uneasy and unsolicited, but ultimately exclusive. The director’s eye to detail allows for much more of this delicate alternating of distance and familiarity.
Ricki and the Flash is a feel-good film. There is enough comedy interwoven to taper discomfort, enough attention paid to make its production and cinematographic quality quite beautiful and more than enough talent to establish a level of intimacy with the story and its characters. Despite its final moments do threaten to slip into a state of conventional or cheesy, I think the glue of the former elements held it together.
Bronte On Film 