Disclaimer: You can call me fat, you can call me ugly. You can say I have no fashion sense. You can place a KICK ME sign on my back and steal my lunch money. You can push me down a flight of stairs and laugh. But you do not talk shit about Rick Springfield. You just don’t.

Val hasn’t told her husband that she and I are going to the movies today. They’re going on vacation tomorrow, and she hasn’t packed anything. She has to get the dogs’ things packed, her clothes need to come out of the dryer, and she has to get the cooler down from the attic. The last thing she should be doing on the day before vacation is going to a movie. Oh, and her husband is also suffering in pain, waiting on some urinary peristalsis to push out a kidney stone.

But this is Ricki and the Flash we’re talking about. Meryl Streep, my celebrity doppleganger, stars as Ricki Rendazzo, an aging rockstar wannabe who left her family behind to follow her dream. Also starring in this movie are Mamie Gummer, Kevin Kline, Audra McDonald, and Sebastian Stan. A lot of the press coverage for this movie circles around the fact that Meryl Streep’s real-life daughter (Mamie) co-stars with her. While that’s certainly interesting, there is one reason and one reason only why we are going to play hooky and shell out nine bucks (which is cheap, I know, but we’re talking about the sticks of New York here) and see this movie. Rick Springfield stars as Greg, Ricki’s lead guitarist and boyfriend. Rick’s had some experience in this role, having played my fantasy boyfriend for about 33 years now. (Note to self: take out this line before you post it, because people will think you are a freak.)

Let me just state here that Val’s husband, while fresh from his middle-of-the-night emergency room visit, is walking around and only stopping intermittently to clutch his back and wince. It’s not like he is writhing in pain or anything. I offer to dress up in a nurse’s outfit, but he suggests that might make it worse. We examine our consciences, and getting our priorities in the right order, make sure Dave doesn’t have a fever, leave a bottle of water on the table for him, and take off for the movies.

“You know, we don’t HAVE to go on opening day,” I say sheepishly as we back out of the driveway.

“He’s OK. Right?” Val replies.

“Yes. He thinks he is going to mow the lawn, so he can’t be that bad. Plus hello? Rick?”

“Right.”

I say a small novena that we don’t come home and find him dead on the floor, because that would be really awkward.

The movie costs me $8.99, and I think it’s odd that it’s not a round number, like it would have been back in civilization. Then I remember that I’m in Orange County, New York, the land that dentistry forgot, and where tattoos count as clothing, so I write it off and immediately spend 4 dollars on a box of Milk Duds. The child working the concessions counter gives me change from my ten in NICKELS. I have to use both hands to accept them. I dump them in my bag and we jingle off to the ladies’ room. I quickly learn that not only has dentistry forgotten these people, apparently architecture has as well. I choose a stall to which I cannot close the door unless I am standing behind or in the toilet. I finally hold the door shut with my bag of nickels, because I spent so much time looking for a poster of the movie it’s now getting late and I don’t want to miss anything.   What kind of theater doesn’t have posters of the movies it’s showing?

Being slightly less visually impaired than Mr. Magoo, I begin my descent down the aisle when I am poked in the back (hard) and asked by Val “what the F” I am doing. I apologize and sit where she instructs me. We are soon surrounded by senior citizens. We figure this is what they do on a Friday afternoon. We spend a few minutes identifying other ladies who have come to see this movie for the same reason as us and immediately judge them.   We then begin to watch approximately 25,000 commercials and previews. I lean over to Val and remark that I wouldn’t mind watching these commercials if the movie ticket was still five bucks or so. She morphs into Wilford Brimley before my very eyes and says, “Weelp, Karen, things never stay the same. Ya gotta change with the times.” What?

I begin a fun game of “Is this it?” with every preview. Finally, the movie we’ve been waiting a year for starts and both of us giggle a little…just a little, as we see a set of knuckles come on screen and we know they belong to our man.   I also think to myself that the opening credits are in a font almost identical to one used in Hard to Hold, a movie from 1984 that gets a A+ for the eye candy, an A++ for the soundtrack, but for the movie itself, well, let’s just say I don’t think Meryl Streep was ever considered for the leading lady in that one. But seriously, only typography nerds like me are going to notice that, so I move on.   (note: only true freaks are even going to get the Hard to Hold reference. Possibly take that out in the re-write.)

Here’s what I loved about this movie. All of the music was recorded live. It’s not lip-synched, it’s not “fixed”, there were no musical or vocal overdubs, at director Jonathan Demme’s insistance. So when you hear Ricki singing “Drift Away”, that’s really Meryl Streep singing at that very moment. And she does a good job. Even if you think she doesn’t, remind yourself that she’s the singer who never made it any further than a bar band. And a cover band at that. I’m in the camp where she can do anything, and she doesn’t disappoint here. When you hear Greg on that Gibson guitar, that is really Rick Springfield strumming me into fits of undulating ecstasy…kidding! Okay, fine. So I’m not kidding.

Here’s what I didn’t love. I had no problem believing Meryl Streep as Ricki Rendazzo; rather, I didn’t so much believe Linda Brummel (Meryl’s character) as Ricki Rendazzo. Which is kind of odd because this story was inspired by Diablo Cody’s mother-in-law, who still sings in a bar band somewhere in New Jersey. You don’t get a whole lot of backstory in this movie, but it did test my suspension of disbelief a bit to accept that Linda would have been married to the Kevin Kline character in the first place. When Ricki goes back home for the first time in many years, her ex and his new wife are living in a ridiculous Westchester mansion. So I’m to believe that she gave all of this up to play in a bar band – and an unsuccessful one at that.   Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I’ve been reading press about this movie for a year, so I think I had an advantage about the plot and the backstory going in. I’m not sure people with lives who didn’t have time to sit around and read every interview with the cast would necessarily understand what brings her to California. You are told that she recorded one album, but it’s at least twenty years later and she is still playing cover tunes to a crowd of like, fifteen people or so. If I wrote this movie, I think I would have had at least one scene where she at least had some promise of making it big. She also doesn’t seem to have much in the way of social graces; she’s a bull in a china shop whenever she is around her family. She buys a blue dress at Goodwill, a dress “as blue as Roger Daltrey’s eyes in Tommy”, but yet proceeds to wear a leather jacket over it at her son’s wedding. Who does that? Even her delicious boyfriend Greg puts on a jacket and tie. He also wears a white t-shirt/denim vest combination on stage that basically reduces me to a sweating, quivering mess, and also a leather vest/no shirt ensemble that makes me want to cry out at his hotness…wait, what was I talking about?

So it was a bit of a struggle for me to believe that Linda became Ricki. Although, if I had a hot guitar player on stage with me every night AND I got to take him home for a romp, I guess it’s not so hard to believe after all. What do I know?

Having said all that, this is a perfectly enjoyable movie. That is, when the two clowns sitting in front of us take a break from the color commentary they’re providing. I’ve never understood people who have to yammer all through a movie. I mean, I leaned over once to whisper “leather pants” to Val, but these two geniuses are literally narrating what is happening on screen. “Look at all the signs in her kitchen.” “He is opening the door.” “She has a tattoo of the American flag on her back.” In all fairness, the one woman could have been blind and needed this kind of play-by-play report, but I don’t think so.  The gentleman behind us waits for a lull in the conversation and lets out a gigantic burp. Orange County, folks. First-class.

The gist of this movie is that you do deserve a second chance, and we see it in my favorite scene. Ricki, for some inexplicable reason, can’t make a commitment to Greg. Whaaat? He chases her backstage, and asks her desperately, “Do you love me?” I have apparently fallen into a trance, as my arms have now fallen to my sides, my head is back, my mouth agape, and I unconsciously whisper my answer, “Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes.” Val elbows me so I don’t miss the rest of it. Seriously, watch my man in this scene. Listen to the way he says “friends.” You’re welcome.

I’m barely done mopping up the drool on my chin when we learn that Greg has sold his beloved Gibson in order to pay for he and Ricki to fly home and attend her son’s wedding. Val and I both catch our breath, and she informs me she is getting teary-eyed. Now I think we are both in love with Greg. And here we thought we couldn’t get any sadder.

The movie starts wrapping up with a Little Drummer Boy-esque “I have no gift to bring” speech from Ricki, as she hauls the Flash up on stage to perform for her son and his new wife. All is forgiven. And there is line dancing.

So, should you see Ricki and the Flash?   Yes, I think so. It’s fun. It’s a feel-good movie, and we all need one of those once in a while. You have to give props to Meryl Streep for learning how to play the guitar and pulling it off. To Jonathan Demme for insisting that all the music be recorded live. So the story is a little weak, but the performances make up for that. And my sweet Rick Springfield kicks ass. Good for him. And me.

Author’s note: we did arrive home to find Val’s husband alive and well. He still doesn’t know we went to the movies.  I’m still not clear on whether he passed the stone.