A woman who left and gave up her family to pursue her dream of rock and roll must return home to try to help her daughter through a very difficult time . . .
Let’s face it I love Meryl Streep and I love Rock Music . . . So come on of course I was going to want to see this one and obviously enjoy it. But also add in some hard-hitting emotional moments and there you have a very good platform for the whole film really. Well that may just be a slightly biased view from myself but it has been a very long time since I wanted to really see a film at the cinema!
Streep offers her usual strong performance where no matter what her character has done that she still manages to get you to feel sorry for her. Honestly why should we feel sorry for Ricki when she left her children and husband to go and pursue rock and roll? Although her valid point about it being different for men does change it a little bit. It is all about how she has grown and realises that she does actually want them to know she cares, even if it takes a lot to be able to do that.
Her daughter Julie has just split up from her husband and getting divorced after he has found someone else. We eventually found out she tried to kill herself, she has quite a lot of issues going on and it seems that the presence of her mother does have a very positive effect to begin with. We quickly see that Adam and Josh do not feel the same way in terms of forgiveness and Ricki is not invited to an up and coming family wedding.
The music side is very good and they certainly picked a very wide variety of songs and let’s face it not ones we would have expected to ever hear Meryl sing. I will admit though that after her initial trip back to see her family the gap with quite a lot of songs seems to drag a little. Mainly because we are unsure to what is going to happen next.
It was nice to see the relationship between Ricki and Greg grow as she eventually decides to properly let him in. We can very easily see that she struggles with relationships with pretty much everyone. I think it was just nice to see that people can eventually change and accept a new person in their life no matter how old they are. Especially with what Greg does to help Ricki out.
Obviously we can see that Ricki and her band the Flash didn’t exactly make it when they are just playing at one bar possibly each week, it never really states how often that is. We do find out that she only had one album, so it does pose the question why did she not go back to her children sooner? Or at least more often.
It must have been very interesting for Mamie Gummer to perform with her mother in this film, but I certainly think this made for some very good moments between the two. Especially with the quick-witted nature, lovely to see that they have worked on a film together. There’s no mistaking who her mother is you just have to look at her to tell. I am interested to see what Mamie does next as this film will certainly help to put her on the map.
It was nice to see Meryl opposite Kevin Kline again after them working together in Sophie’s Choice many years ago. I couldn’t help but think that this film also felt like it could link to another of Meryl’s films in Kramer v Kramer when she had left a son in that one as well, surely it could have ended like some crazy crossover film? Ok that is getting ahead of myself just a little.
This film won’t be for everyone, but let’s face it Meryl doesn’t put in bad performances.
