Film review: Ricki and the Flash is a drama that hits all the right notes

Meryl Streep as Ricki and Rick Springfield as Greg in the film Ricki and the Flash. Bob Vergara / Sony Pictures via AP

Ricki and the Flash

Director: Jonathan Demme

Starring: Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Rick Springfield

Four stars

Early on in Ricki and the Flash, Ricki (Meryl Streep) gets a call that disarms her before she's even decided to pick it up. With smoky eyes, braided rock-star hair and a swagger that suggests skin that's as thick as her leather trousers, this doesn't seem like a ­woman who would back down from a challenge.

Yet she hesitates to pick it up – you get the sense that she’s either become accustomed to being scolded by the voice on the other end of the line, or has just given up on dealing with that other side of her life.

It’s a small but telling moment in a lovely film, laced with intensely human details, that gives the audience the chance to get to know its characters in a way that many films come up short.

The voice on the line is her ex-husband Pete (Kevin Kline), father of her three grown-up children. He’s wants her to come to Indiana where their daughter’s husband has left her, she’s a wreck and Ricki needs to help. Only a few minutes in, and we’re well on our way to understanding Ricki. We’ve seen her hold the attention of a small but enthusiastic audience at a bar as the lead singer of a rock covers band and then suffer through her day job as a shop assistant. There’s no exposition. No voice-over. It’s all story advancing character specifics that are amplified by Streep’s layered performance as this broke, 60-something woman with the spirit and soul of a rebellious, stargazing teenager.

Such a concoction could only come from (or, at least, make it to the screen via) the mind of Juno and Young Adult screenwriter Diablo Cody, cinema's songstress of defiant women.

Ricki’s arrival is a tumultuous one as she attempts to reintegrate herself in the lives of the family she abandoned and restore broken Julie (Mamie Gummer, Streep’s real-life daughter). Everyone has moved on and no one is afraid to tell her.

It sounds like the stuff of melodrama, but in the hands of director Jonathan Demme, the story chugs along naturally and subtly. In fact, all of the relationships are given an unexpected texture and depth, from the ex-husband’s new wife (Audra McDonald) to Ricki’s more-than-a-friend bandmate Greg (Rick ­Springfield).

But it’s Gummer, Streep and Kline whom you want to spent more time with. Gummer and Streep, in particular, disappear into their roles.

The only real plot contrivance is a late-in-the-film wedding and a third-act montage of growth that feels rushed.

Ultimately, spending time with these people is pleasant and even thought-provoking – with a great soundtrack, too.