Movie review: Ricki and the Flash

Meryl Streep as Ricki in Ricki and the Flash.

Meryl Streep has made us believe she's many people over the years - Margaret Thatcher or Julia Childs. Lindy Chamberlain or Karen Blixen. Or a woman running a B&B in the Greek Isles whose days are spent bursting into Abba tunes. All quite believable.

But rock chick? Not so much. Actually not at all.

There's just something unconvincing about Streep in the role of Ricki Rendazzo, leather 'n' laced, braided-hair bar-rocker.

Yes she's mean to be playing the sad figure of a rock 'n' roll also-ran who followed her music dreams from Indiana to California but ended up in a covers residency somewhere in the San Fernando Valley.

So yes, that she's got a face her hairstyle and wardrobe no longer believes in, is all part of the character.

But you can't escape the feeling: Hey look, it's Meryl Streep playing guitar and shouting Woolly Bully.

No doubt she's actually strumming and actually singing in that reedy voice. But somehow, between its story and character contrivances and its deathless songs, Ricki and the Flash feels like a rehearsal.

Or a cover version of a movie. Or the sequel to a Cameron Crowe movie no one remembers in which Streep might have been really great.

It's also a you-can-never-go-home-again kind of film - Ricki, real name Linda, ran out on her husband and three young kids to follow her rock dreams.

She's called by her ex (Kline) who feels that despite his former wife having had virtually nothing to do with her offspring for decades, she should visit because daughter Julie (Streep's own daughter, Gummer) has been emotionally devastated by the departure of her husband.

And so it starts, a procession of tag-team family arguments between Ricki and those she hurt and, eventually, with her former hubby's domestic wonder-woman of a wife.

The mother-daughter reconciliation story peters out - as do a few other things. Ricki seems to be an Obama-hating conservative with a "Don't Tread on Me" American patriot tattoo but her right-wing leanings disappear along the way.

The movie is written by Diablo Cody who did better with family upheavals in Juno and with hometown returns in Young Adult.

It's directed by Jonathan Demme, who has made many movies about music (like the Talking Heads classic Stop Making Sense) or have run with it - Philadephia with its Springsteen theme song.

Here, he lets the music run long, while the story and performances largely come up short.

Only Rick Springfield as Ricki's bandmate and lover, and Streep's Sophie's Choice co-star Kline justify their casting.

This films does its leading lady no favours. Unless, that is, you feel that what Streep's career has really been missing is a scene of her murdering Woolly Bully.

Verdict: Not so flash

Cast: Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Mamie Gummer
Director: Jonathan Demme
Rating: PG
Running time: 101 mins