Ricki and the Flash Movie Review

Ricki and the Flash (2015)

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Written by: Diablo Cody 
Directed by: Jonathan Demme
Starring: Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Mamie Gummer, Rick Springfield
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer

Plot
Ricki abandoned her husband Pete and three children to pursue her dream of being a rock star. With her daughter Julie devastated over a divorce, Ricki takes a break from her cover band to see her daughter.

Verdict
It's got two or three good scenes amid the predictable, trope filled, plot. The performances aren't bad but every single story beat is so predictable and trite. A great cast saves it from being absolutely terrible, but that is far from an endorsement. This could have been a decent movie if explored the over the hill, never made it wannabee, but this movie is as deep as a rain drop.
Skip it.

Review
I wasn't going to watch this movie. I had a feeling it wouldn't be good, but I heard a review that persuaded me to check it out. What a mistake. I should have gone with my first instinct.
I expected better singing from the first scene. Ricki (Meryl Streep) gave up her family to head a cover band? Couldn't it at least be a good cover band? I was still holding out hope for this movie, it should have been incredibly depressing, but it wasn't. It wavers between rebuking a deadbeat mom and making fun of a mom trying too hard to be a cool rock star.

Ricki works as cashier to make ends meet. She gets a call from her ex-husband that her daughter is devastated over a divorce and is coerced to be there for her daughter. She doesn't want to come back. She's a real mom of the year contender. The movie is heavy on tropes, the struggling rock star, the care free mom, the dysfunctional family, ugh.

Ricki and the Flash - If only it were over in a flash.

This is one of those movies I knew fifteen minutes in I wasn't going to like it. The question then was how much would I dislike it (hint: a lot).
We get a great scene depicting just how terrible Ricki and her daughter are. In a coffee shop they are having an argument with each other. They are being distracting and rude, but when a patron asks them to keep it down, both mother and daughter blame the guy, tell him to leave, then make fun of him and his daughter. They're a real class act. If the goal of the movie was to make me hate these people, mission accomplished.

Of course no cliche dysfunctional family movie would be complete without a dinner at a fancy restaurant. It's not a bad scene, but it could have been good. It's not, but it could have.
Ricki, her uptight ex Pete (Kevin Kline), and Julie (Mamie Gummer) then smoke some pot because the movie has to reinforce the care free rocker stereotype.
Of course Ricki is threatened by Pete's wife Maureen. Big shocker. Maureen drops the reality bomb on Ricki. She cuts Ricki don to nothing which was actually satisfying. It's about time someone did it. Ricki's a birth mother, but not there mom. Maureen has taken care of them since the kids were teenagers. 

Ricki returns to her cover band and delivers a painful train of thought speech decrying her kids hate her and she should take the blame. Then she finally admits she likes Greg the lead guitar player in her band and everything is suddenly okay.
Ricki is invited to her son's wedding. She doesn't want to attend and ruin her deadbeat mom status, but Greg convinces her to go. She receives lots of stares at the wedding and not just because she's the black sheep. It's because she wore a black leather jacket over her dress. Maybe it's a metaphor. She desires to stand out, wearing this false facade of a rock star, or maybe I'm giving this movie WAY too much credit. Probably the latter.

This movie excels at awkwardness, but it scenes where that probably wasn't the goal an they were hoping for heartfelt.
Ricki doesn't have any money (they used that joke every chance they got) to give her son and daughter in law, but being a musician she can give that. I thought this would be the part where Ricki performs an original song apologizing for how terrible she was and is, but no, it's just a Bruce Springsteen cover. And then it ended, which made me incredibly thankful.

It could have been really interesting to explore a deadbeat mom, but Streep is made out to be some kind of hero saving the day, while taking very little responsibility. We get a drunk speech defending her dream chasing, citing Mick Jagger who gets away with it so she should be able to do it too. This movie could have even explored the struggling artist that's an anachronism is the modern world, but that's just a punch line every other scene. Take the angle of what Ricki gave up for her dreams, the commitment she had, yet she's still chasing that dream that will never come. The tone of the movie is completely wrong. I reject the premise that everyone is happy at the end of this movie. They shouldn't be.