If you’re a devoted fan of a particular musician or group, chances are you’ll eventually shell out for the “rarities” collection that features snippets and fragments that were either retooled or abandoned entirely once it became clear that they were never going to become actual songs. With “Ricki and the Flash,” screenwriter Diablo Cody and director Jonathan Demme get together for a jam session that’s all snippets and no hit singles.
There’s an idea for a movie here, about a woman who abandons her husband and kids to pursue her rock and roll dreams, only to come home later for a family crisis; throw in some confrontations and some redemption, and presumably you’ve got a story. What we get from Cody and Demme feels more like an assemblage of almost-characters in an almost-story, resulting in a very disappointing almost-movie.
Certainly the role of Ricki Rendazzo, formerly known as Linda Brummel, seemed on paper to be another great showcase for Meryl Streep, and the actress does what she can with a role that’s not only sketchy and inconsistent but also forces her to wear the screen’s most hideous braids since Ewan McGregor in “The Phantom Menace.” Streep has a gift for making us believe in her performance from moment to moment even when, by the final encore, we realize that we don’t believe in the woman she’s playing.
Decades after ditching her family to attempt to make it big in Los Angeles, Ricki gets a call from her ex-husband Pete (Kevin Kline, reuniting with his “Sophie’s Choice” co-star) to return to the Midwest to visit their daughter Julie (Mamie Gummer, Streep’s real-life progeny), who’s suicidally depressed after being abandoned by her husband. There’s a weird “Stella Dallas” vibe to this section, with bankrupt grocery store cashier Ricki oohing and aahing over Pete’s gated-community lifestyle, but given that Ricki was once married to Pete, it would make more sense for the character to be returning to her past rather than beaming in from another planet. Ricki bull-in-a-china-shops her way through the whole movie, as though she had never experienced Pete’s world before fleeing it.
(Speaking of the class struggle, the film includes a scene in which a veteran rocker is gobsmacked to learn that the drinks at a wedding are free, despite the fact that he’s probably attended a few nuptials in a professional capacity over the years.)
The visit also allows Ricki to catch up with her sons: Adam (Nick Westrate) is gay and embittered, while Josh (Sebastian Stan, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”) is passive-aggressive and about to marry snotty Emily (Hailey Gates) in a ceremony about which Ricki has not been informed and to which she has not been invited. (Did I mention that the movie makes Ricki an arch-conservative and then does almost nothing with that information?)
“Ricki and the Flash” is the kind of film where characters do a 180 from angry to adoring on a dime when the scene calls for it, where complicated emotional conflicts are settled with one pleasant conversation and where even the lead character’s ultimate act of generosity — involving, you guessed it, Ricki singing — is really, at its heart, another desperate attempt to become the focus of attention.
(In Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married,” the long musical sequences completely interrupted the flow of the storytelling, but since “Ricki” has so little plot or momentum to speak of, the interludes featuring the titular band have nothing to interrupt.)
There’s one scene in which Ricki and boyfriend Greg (Rick Springfield, currently having a moment between this and “True Detective”) communicate mutual respect and adoration with their eyes while making their way through “Drift Away,” but for the most part, the musical bits are inoffensive but negligible. (To its credit, the movie never pretends that this band is too good to be playing covers in the San Fernando Valley, even though Streep’s backing players include legends like Bernie Worrell and the late Rick Rosas.)
There are moments that work in “Ricki” — an awkward family dinner, a scene featuring Charlotte Rae as Pete’s senile mother, a confrontation between Ricki and Pete’s second wife Maureen (Audra McDonald) — but they play like discrete bits of pleasure that don’t add up to anything. It’s fine to forfeit elements like stakes or suspense for a character piece, but when the characters are this vague, there’s nothing on which to hang your hat (or headband, for that matter).
Future editors of Meryl Streep Lifetime Achievement Award montages will no doubt find good use for the sequences where the star croons Pink or Bruce Springsteen, but until then, “Ricki and the Flash” represents a B-side cut for all involved, one not worth playing.
40 Best and Worst Actors Playing Real-Life Musicians (Photos)
The 1950s biopic “The Glenn Miller Story” took substantial liberties with the real story, but Jimmy Stewart was persuasive enough as the star bandleader to make the movie a big hit.
Universal
If you’re looking for somebody to play Hank Williams, the haunted, skeletal composer of such heartbreak classics as this 1964 movie’s title track, “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” George Hamilton is not exactly the guy who first springs to mind.
MGM
We knew Diana Ross could sing after her string of hits in the ‘60s, but we didn’t know she could act until she made an astounding film debut as the tortured Billie Holiday in 1972's “Lady Sings the Blues.”
Paramount Pictures
Director Ken Russell’s thesis in 1975's “Lisztomania” was that classical composers were the rock stars of their day, so he enlisted real rock star Roger Daltrey to mug his way through an overheated extravaganza about Franz Liszt.
Warner Bros.
“Bound for Glory,” a lavishly fictionalized 1976 recounting of the life of troubadour Woody Guthrie was nominated for six Oscars and won two – and it moved David Carradine, briefly, from a TV lead who made B movies to an unconventional movie star.
United Artists
Before he was a made-for-TV wacko, Gary Busey was a pretty fine actor – and never better than when he played the title role in 1978's “The Buddy Holly Story,” a biopic of the ‘50s rock star whose life ended early.
Columbia
As a kid, Kurt Russell acted alongside Elvis Presley in “It Happened at the World’s Fair.” As an adult, he got to act like the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll in the 1979 TV miniseries “Elvis.”
Dick Clark Productions
No, she’s not actually playing Janis Joplin -- but Bette Midler’s powerhouse performance in "The Rose" as a fearsomely talented, self-destructive and very Joplin-esque singer was the closest we’ve gotten to Janis onscreen, despite numerous recent efforts.
Fox
A lot of real country singers appeared in Michael Apted’s 1980 Loretta Lynn biopic “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” but actress Sissy Spacek took the central role (and the Oscar) after being personally chosen by Lynn.
Universal
“Amadeus” (1984) took its title from Mozart’s middle name, and Tom Hulce was just fine as the bratty prodigy – but this is Salieri’s story, and F. Murray Abraham’s movie.
Orion Pictures
Par for the course in musical biopics, 1985's “Sweet Dreams” was attacked for the liberties it took with the true story – but Jessica Lange was persuasive enough to land her fourth Oscar nomination as Patsy Cline.
TriStar
Gary Oldman has said he doesn’t like his haunted and ferocious performance as the self-destructive and ill-fated Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious in 1986's “Sid & Nancy,” but most would disagree with him.
Samuel Goldwyn
Lou Diamond Phillips, meanwhile, burst onto the scene in 1987's “La Bamba” as Richie Valens, another rocker who died in the same plane crash that killed Holly.
Columbia
Decades before Clint Eastwood’s so-so “Jersey Boys,” he hit the right notes with 1988's “Bird,” his look at jazz titan Charlie Parker – and Forest Whitaker’s quiet but towering performance won him the Best Actor award at Cannes in 1988.
Warner Bros.
T Bone Burnett, who worked on 1989's "Great Balls of Fire," which starred an over-the-top Dennis Quaid as Jerry Lee Lewis, once lamented that this cartoonish romp “made it look like the Dukes of Hazzard invented rock ‘n’ roll.”
Orion Picutres
Perhaps the excesses of Oliver Stone’s 1991 film “The Doors” aren’t far removed from the excesses of its subject, Jim Morrison. Val Kilmer embraces them all with deranged gusto.
TriStar
Both Angela Bassett and co-star Laurence Fishburne received Oscar nominations for their roles as Tina Turner and her abusive husband Ike in 1993's “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” and Bassett won the Golden Globe for her fierce performance in a role first offered to Whitney Houston.
Buena Vista
The character is identified as “Mentor” in the credits of Quentin Tarantino's 1993 film "True Romance," but we all know (and love) the apparition, played by Val Kilmer, who pushes Christian Slater to stand up to Gary Oldman’s dreadlocked pimp: It's the ghost of Elvis, of course.
Warner Bros.
Stephen Dorff was so impressive as original Beatles bassist Stu Sutcliffe in 1994's “Backbeat” that no less an authority than Paul McCartney, who otherwise hated the film, called him “astonishing.”
Gramercy
From a Sex Pistol to classical icon Ludwig Van Beethoven in 1994's “Immortal Beloved,” Oldman shows the broadest range of anybody on this list. But his randy Ludwig Van isn’t one of his best showcases.
Sony/Columbia
Fans of the Mexican-American singer Selena were upset that a New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent, Jennifer Lopez, was chosen for the title role in 1997's “Selena” – but J-Lo’s star-making performance silenced most of the critics.
Warner Bros.
In 2002's wondrously weird rock ‘n’ roll mummy movie "Bubba Ho-Tep," Bruce Campbell gives us an aging, decrepit Elvis who can still gloriously kick butt.
Vitagraph
OK, we admit it: We haven’t seen 2003's “The Night We Called It a Day.” But Dennis Hopper as Frank Sinatra? The prospect is too weird, and too delicious, to ignore.
ContentFilm International
Kevin Spacey directed, co-wrote and co-produced 2004 “Beyond the Sea,” as well as starring as ‘50s and ‘60s pop singer Bobby Darin – even though Darin died at the age of 37, making the 44-year-old Spacey’s performance problematic at times.
Lions Gate
Jamie Foxx’s career-making, Oscar-winning performance as Ray Charles in 2004's "Ray" launched the former “In Living Color” performer to a whole new level of stardom.
Universal
Joaquin Phoenix didn’t exactly sing like Johnny Cash in 2005's "Walk the Line" (no one can), but he captured some man-in-blackish essence, and Reese Witherspoon won the Oscar as June Carter.
Marion Cotillard won the Oscar for "La Vie en Rose," the first movie in which many Stateside viewers saw her – not that they’d recognize her under the makeup that transformed her into tiny, tortured chanteuse Edith Piaf.
Photographer-turned-director Anton Corbijn's moody black-and-white touch was just right for 2007's "Control," a story of the seminal post-punk band Joy Division starring Sam Riley as Ian Curtis, the singer who struggled to cope with success and with life.
Weinstein Company
Michael Shannon’s performance as Sunset Strip Svengali Kim Fowley is the standout in the middling 2010 movie “The Runaways”; Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning didn’t particularly stand out as Joan Jett and Cherie Currie, respectively.
Apparition
Alan Rickman survives 2013's “CBGB” relatively intact as the proprietor of a legendary ‘70s punk dive – but the poor actors roped into standing in for the stars of the scene, Malin Akerman as Debbie Harry among them, don’t fare nearly so well.
Xlrator Media
Clint Eastwood won kudos from theater fans for tapping Broadway stars for his movie adaptation of 2014's "Jersey Boys," but John Lloyd Young was a better singer and stage performer than actor in his performance as Frankie Valli.
Warner Bros.
In "Jimi: All Is By My Side," John Ridley’s upcoming, unorthodox year-in-the-life Jimi Hendrix story, former Outkast singer Andre Benjamin captures the spacey, dreamy side of a rock icon who lived in a purple haze.
Open Road
Chadwick Boseman has the moves and the hair to play James Brown in "Get On Up" – and when you’re playing the Godfather of Soul, those two things will take you all the way to funkytown.
Universal
Ethan Hawke stars in another adventurous film about a jazz legend, the Chet Baker fantasia “Born to Be Blue.” Like Baker’s music, the film (and Hawke’s performance) is dreamy, ethereal and heartbreaking.
Entertainment One
Haunted-looking and skeletal, Tom Hiddleston makes a convincing Hank Williams (and a creditable country singer) in “I Saw the Light,” but the conventional film is far more interested in drugs and booze than in Williams' brilliant music.
Sony Pictures Classics
“Miles Ahead,” actor-director Don Cheadle’s unconventional film about the jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, is odd and audacious – in other words, the kind of movie you should make if you’re going to make a movie about the revolutionary and unconventional musician.
Sony Pictures Classics
Zoe Saldana is a light-skinned woman of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent, which has made her casting as the dark-skinned African American singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone a highly controversial one.
RLJ Entertainment
Michael Shannon plays the king of rock ‘n’ roll in the upcoming “Elvis & Nixon,” a comedic look at the 1970 meeting between Elvis Presley and U.S. President Richard Nixon (Kevin Spacey), at which Presley badgered Nixon into giving him a Drug Enforcement Administration badge.
Tribeca Film Festival
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Tom Hiddleston, Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke and Zoe Saldana are latest among the hundreds of actors who’ve tried playing musicians on screen
The 1950s biopic “The Glenn Miller Story” took substantial liberties with the real story, but Jimmy Stewart was persuasive enough as the star bandleader to make the movie a big hit.