There isn’t a role that Meryl Streep can’t absolutely knock out of the park. It’s kind of crazy. She’s just as believable as Margaret Thatcher or Julia Child as she is portraying a fading music star in Jonathan Demme’s charming dramedy Ricki and the Flash. Well observed and written with sass and sensitivity by Diablo Cody, the film is that rare medium budgeted studio picture that’s about family and people and human interaction and words and thoughts and feelings. Kevin Kline is around for some great supporting moments and comical pot smoking, but the entire picture is stolen by Mamie Gummer, playing Streep’s estranged daughter, who is emotionally devastated over the recent collapse of her marriage, and still hurting from years of motherly inactivity. If you want a film about characters and their emotions and how we’re all human beings who are capable of mistakes, this is the film for you; not a CGI image in sight.
The story focuses on the broken nature of families when divorce is involved, and how when one parent, in this case Streep, disappears into their own private world, the effects can be long lasting on their children. Demme is one of the most humanistic of filmmakers I can think of, and as usual, there’s an effortless sense of grace that accompanies every sequence in this intimate film. Music, as always, plays a large part to the narrative and general cinematic atmosphere; in another life, Demme was likely some sort of rock ‘n roll star. And the film confirms, yet again, as if we needed to be reminded, how versatile and engaging Streep is as a performer, taking a potentially totally unsympathetic character and filling the edges with moments of personal reflection that might not have existed on the page. A mild sleeper hit in the theaters, this is the sort of film that will find a long life on cable and on disc. Also – some nice Rick Springfield POWER.
Podcasting Them Softly 