‘Ricki and the Flash’ missing a few key notes

 

Add playing an aging rock star and being able to deliver a mean guitar lick to Meryl Steep’s impressive resume, as she’s required to do both in her latest, “Ricki and the Flash,” a fun movie as far as it goes, which unfortunately isn’t far enough.

Sporting a script by Diablo Cody (“Juno”), the film takes a standard fish-out-of-water premise — dropping an aging rock ‘n’ roller back into the upper-middle-class world she fled years earlier — and does very little with it, using a standard familial crisis as its foundation but failing to develop it in any meaningful way.

 

To be sure, the music scenes are fun, but they run too long — I suspect as a distraction from the thin story, which is nothing but an old tune.

For a full review, go to: http://www.news-gazette.com/arts-entertainment/local/2015-08-06/chuck-koplinski-haunting-gift-one-years-best-surprises.html

Kline and Smith Give Life to “My Old Lady”

Kevin Kline is firmly in his element here as Mathias Gold, a twice-divorced, would-be author in his late 50’s who’s as broke as the day he was born. However, he thinks fortune has turned for him when his father dies and he inherits a Parisian apartment. Looking to quickly sell the property and pocket the cash, Gold travels to the City of Lights, counting his monetary chickens before they’re hatched. What he doesn’t realize is that the apartment comes with a tenant — the 92-year-old Mathilde Girard (Maggie Smith) — who’s lived there for over 50 years and has no plans to relocate. The legally binding arrangement his father entered into was to pay a low initial price for the property and then pay the tenant a certain sum each month until she dies, at which time the Golds would assume complete ownership. So instead of being able to sell the apartment or even collect rent on it, Mathias finds himself saddled with the property and required to pay Mathilde on a monthly basis.

Kline is quite good during moments in which his characters are exasperated, conveying indignation and anger while recognizing the bitter irony of the situation. Kristin Scott Thomas as Mathilde’s daughter Chloe comfortably shares the screen with him, able to project a similar strength and sense of determination when they go toe-to-toe. And while Kline is effective in his own charming way, Smith is able to cut him to the quick with her acerbic wit time and again. The quiet scenes these two veterans share are among the film’s best.

To be sure, Lady gets a bit lazy during its third act, failing to deliver anything in the way of dramatic irony, content to meet the audience’s expectations and little else. Be that as it may, Kline, Smith and Scott bring just enough heart to their roles to make the film worth your while.