Meryl Streep stars as a “guitar-wielding, hard rockin’ mama” in Ricki and the Flash, opposite her real-life daughter Mamie Gummer.
Updated June 9:
A brand new trailer has been released, showing Meryl Streep’s character trying to balance her music career with her family life. Check it out:
Original story:
The first trailer for Meryl Streep’s Ricki and the Flash gives us an amazing look at Meryl Streep’s upcoming movie, in which she plays a middle-aged rock star who reunites with the family she left behind:
Written by Juno‘s Diablo Cody and directed by Jonathan Demme, Ricki and the Flash stars Meryl Streep as Ricki, who is prompted to reconnect with her daughter (played by Mamie Gummer, who is the spitting image of her mother!) after the latter’s heart has been broken.
Ricki’s family reunion isn’t smooth sailing, however, mainly because of her children’s step-mother’s frosty reception, and the revelation that her son was going to get married without telling her.
In the trailer we see Streep slowly connect to her wayward children, played by Gummer, Sebastian Stan and Nick Westrate. Rick Springfield co-stars as Ricki’s bandmate Greg, with Kevin Kline and Audra McDonald playing her estranged husband and his new wife, respectively.
Meryl Streep reportedly spent six months learning to play the guitar for this role, and will be singing several songs in the movie.
Diablo Cody actually based the character on her own mother-in-law, Terry, the lead singer in a Jersey Shore band called Silk and Steel.
“Rock ‘n’ roll is her life,” Cody tells Yahoo! Movies. “I think there’ve been people in her life who’ve thought it was kind of a silly thing for a mom or grandmother to do, and she doesn’t give a damn. I love that about her.”