September 3, 2015

• Ricki and the Flash -- a review

  As my regular readers already know, I've been busy for more than a month taking care of wife Barbara, whose fractured hip (she tripped and fell on July 28) is getting close to full weight-bearing, but we need for the surgeon to verify that.

  So Barbara's getting better and BOTH of us might be earning some income soon.  We both hope to be working in October.  My job -- and at this point I'm just hoping it works out -- will consist of locking and unlocking buildings at the inconvenient hours of 6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.  But it's something.

  I was inspired to post a blog today because we just saw "Ricki and the Flash" and Barbara and I both feel it's an outstanding movie, despite lukewarm reactions from audiences and critics.

  First of all, there's Meryl Streep and that's reason enough to see and enjoy any movie.  She plays Ricki Rendazzo (or Linda Brummel as she was known in a former life as the mother of three in an Indiana family), an aging rock-and-roll singer who doesn't earn enough leading a band at a San Fernando Valley bar to live on without a second job as a supermarket cashier.  Meanwhile, her ex-husband Pete (Kevin Kline, who's being reunited with the actress who co-starred with him in Sophie's Choice) has no money problems but does have difficulty with a suicidal daughter, one of three kids from the Pete-Linda marriage.  He makes an emergency call to his ex, and Ricki/Linda scrapes up the money to fly to Indianapolis and provide some motherly support to her estranged, unwelcoming daughter Julie, played by Streep's real-life daughter Mamie Gummer.

  So what we have here is a story about a dysfunctional family that wouldn't be that without the returning presence of the mother who walked away to seek fame and fortune as a rock star.

  At least that's the lens through which I watched, having come from a dysfunctional family my own self.  I guess that explains why audiences and critics have been close to hostile.  Normal people just can't relate, sometimes.  "Normal" meaning, coming from well-adjusted families.  Really?  I thought they were the exception.  I thought almost everyone came from dysfunctional families.  Oh, well.

  The acting and writing and music are first-rate.  That counts for something.  If the story, such as it is, seems unrealistic, tough.

  As for the music:  Ricki and the Flash consisted of lead singer Streep, who we already knew could sing since we enjoyed her so thoroughly in "Prairie Home Companion," "Into the Woods," and "Mamma Mia!", Joe Vitale on drums, hall of fame keyboard artist Bernie Worrell, bassist Rick Rosas, and Rick Springfield on guitar.  Springfield's role was expanded to include a love interest between him and Ricki, and that was one of the plot elements that pleased me the most.  

  That, and the ten musical numbers which were played and sung to perfection.

   

   

  • 5:40 pm
  • 1 Comment