In Ricki And The Flash, Meryl Streep plays Ricki Rendazzo – aka Linda Brummell – a 60-something failed rockstar living in LA, until she is called back to Indiana by her estranged family. Her daughter Julie (Streep’s actual daughter Mamie Gummer) is having a breakdown, following a nasty romantic split, and Ricki’s ex-husband Pete (Kevin Kline) can’t figure out how to help her. Enter Ricki...
Screenwriter Diablo Cody has fun with dysfunctional family stereotypes. Streep’s odd-one-out character is a mixture of acerbic brilliance and familiar cliché. Ricki is slightly crude, perennially broke and inconveniently honest. She’s also somewhat apologetic,
as she sets out to atone for having left her family to pursue her dream – an act, as Ricki notes, for which men are apparently glorified (are they?).
Cody juggles issues of class and gender like knives. But ultimately the intriguing family drama in Ricki And The Flash is diluted by too many musical interludes, preventing the actors – Streep included – from fully rounding out what are interesting characters.