Every month, we at The Spool select a filmmaker to explore in greater depth their themes, their deeper concerns, how their works chart the history of cinema and the filmmakers own biography. For February, were celebrating acclaimed genre-bender Jonathan Demme. Read the rest of our coveragehere.

2015s Ricki and the Flash doesnt know whats about to happen. It doesnt know it would silence the successful string of Singing Streep films. It doesnt know its Jonathan Demmes final film. And it doesnt fully realize the changing conservative political tide that was about to crest over America the following year.

Ricki and the Flash is a rock n roll fable about Ricki, a prodigal mother (Meryl Streep) who returns to bourgeois Indiana from her life as a working-class musician to help estranged daughter Julie (Mamie Gummer) through her divorce and suicide attempt. Her return reignites hostilities with ex-husband Pete (Kevin Kline) and sons Josh and Adam (Sebastian Stan and Nick Westrate). But with a little classic rock, the atypical family learns to accept one another. Sorta.

Ricki Rendazzo (real name Linda Brummell) is complex and flawed, to use 2015s euphemisms. She is a rock n roll baby boomer whose ideology is in direct conflict with the music she sings. She makes disparaging racial remarks about Obama, thinks all Asian people look alike, has a Dont Tread On Me back tattoo, and thinks her son Adams homosexuality is a passing lifestyle choice. While Ricki seems to be composed entirely of cognitive dissonance, the film interrogates none of these flaws, which rings a little tragic in a post-Trump world.

Uncharacteristically, Demmes camera feels invisible. This film has a straight-forward, matter-of-fact style that works to humanize its grisly protagonist. However, true to form, Demme composes some crackerjack musical sequences. Even the surprising renditions of Lady Gagas Bad Romance and P!nks Get This Party Started are shot with earnest verve. Demme, till the very end, has a wonderful eye for music. He knows how to cut to compliment the rhythm and is still masterfully able to get us inside the songs.

Written by Diablo Cody (Juno, Jennifers Body, Young Adult), this off-kilter rock dramedy has a lot of good things going for it. An incredible cast headlines the film; Kline and Streep, pairing now for the third time, bring their tender chemistry back full circle. Streep and real-life daughter Gummer have a wonderful working rapport that makes the snipes weve come to expect from Cody feel all that more delicious.

There are plenty of winners in the supporting cast, too. Rock icon and consistent charmer Rick Springfield is a delight as Greg, Rickis somewhat boyfriend and lead guitarist of The Flash. Multi-Tony-Award-Winner Audra McDonald plays Maureen, Petes all-too-patient second wife. Unlike the film, we will return to her.

2015s Ricki and the Flash doesnt know whats about to happen.

Ricki and The Flashs tone runs all over the place. While the film doesnt get bogged down with subplots or unnecessary twists, the awkwardness of the films halves makes for a jolting momentum. Gummer does the best she can, finding golden moments of humor in a character that has to take a backseat to her family drama.

The film turns into a sentimental melodrama, as the second half forgets Julies struggles entirely and focuses on Ricki patching things up with her sons. All this while Ricki and The Flash intermittently pad the film with rousing covers of classic rock songs. They end the wedding with Bruce Springsteens My Love Will Not Let You Down and Canned Heats Lets Work Together.

But can they ever really work together? Wont Rickis love let her family down because of her beliefs? Looking back on contemporary reviews at the time, 2015 was happy to tepidly tip-toe around Rickis bigotry. Streep, never one to take on politically radical roles, pulls back just enough to let us know this is one background the grande chameleon is unwilling to disappear into. (Why she thought The Iron Lady wasnt as fraught, I still have no idea.)

Many critics avoided the politics altogether. But some critics praised the rebellious mother for her strength in pursuit of her dreams, despite societal pressure. Some even thought she should have been more outspoken instead of letting her family walk all over her. Others saw the familys animosity stem not from bigotry, but being fundamentally decent people whose choices have put them at odds with one another.

There were a few critics who acknowledged the troublesome politics, but downplay their severity. Ricki is described as more of an experiment than a person we should take seriously. Others focused on how Demmes use of ritual and music dissolve[s] [the] boundaries that Rickis beliefs put up in the family. To some extent this is true. Ricki performing at her sons wedding seems to make amends. But this moment plasters over Rickis politics, it does not acknowledge, correct them, or show theyve changed.

This isnt too say 2015 overlooked Rickis problems altogether. Slate critic Dana Stevens rightfully finds Rickis attitudes mournfully unexplored, despite it being a logical conversation to have. In his New York Times review, Bob Vergara describes Cody and Demme as conflict-averse and is justifiably confused as to why liberal-minded Demme didnt interrogate further. But even these reviews do not think Rickis problems are remarkable enough to investigate fully. They are happy to leave the film with a patronizing and benign ok, boomer commentary and move on.

Watching Ricki and the Flash after 2016 makes us realize how dangerous Ricki is.

Essentially, the Hollywood of 2015 had an optimism that the following year would prove completely unfounded. Even though the increased public discourse on police brutality and the rage of the riots in Ferguson, Missouri had begun in earnest the year before, many still thought 2016 would maintain the era of liberal centrism ushered in under the Obama administration. Only Varietys Andrew Barker, in acknowledging the changing shift in classic rock demographics, seems to sense the lurking trembles of right-wing populism in the films subconscious.

Though the film believes liberal goodness will change hearts and minds, watching Ricki and the Flash after 2016 makes us realize how dangerous Ricki is. Demme and Cody see Ricki and her politics as a flash in the pan, the last gasp of a dying ideology. Only now do we see the flash is actually the flicker of an oncoming train entering a long dark tunnel.

This is a movie about a wandering generation that believes in fierce, unregulated independence (for some). Ricki set out following the promises of rock n roll only to find that failure was still possible. Yet she refuses to see any link between her poverty and the ideologies she espouses. Time has shown that Ricki doesnt have to wait long. Her lost generation was about to find itself to monstrous effect.

And this distance is no more palpable than when we watch how she itself interacts with McDonald. Take for instance, the first scene with Ricki at The Brummels palatial abode. They already hint at this new wife, but shes not at home because shes visiting her sick father in Seattle.

Ricki sarcastically comments on the marble foyer to which Pete replies sometimes I feel like Jefferson at Monticello. Which, you know, makes McDonald into Sally Hemmings. If you dont know that one of the most acclaimed black performers of our time is in this movie, you might forget to yikes when Maureen shows up an hour later.

When they are on screen together, the tension between Ricki and Maureen feels heightened amongst a new political climate. Far from a meek and mild second wife, McDonald turns Maureen into a strong and intelligent force. We hold our breath, waiting for racial hostilities to ignite. Weve seen how people like Ricki who come into power respond to black dissenting bodies. But it never comes.

Ricki and the Flash captures a particular moment in American history where our liberal elite thought their reign was far from over. They were too scared to address existing racial tension because we were post-racial. Everything was going to be fine. The film paints Ricki as a fossil, a relic from a fading time. Demmes trademark humanism encouraged sympathy for a woman left behind by the system.

But now, because people gloss over her bigotry, this sympathy has turned to fear and loathing. We know it is entirely possible that Ricki doesnt learn her lesson and that, one day, in the not so distant future, we would have to confront her ideologies on a much grander scale.Watching Ricki and The Flash now reveals how ephemeral film can be and how our relationship to what it preserves changes over time. Far from static, films change over the years because the reflection changes. As such, Demmes final work leaves us looking at a funhouse mirror in which we can see our social distortions. We owe it to his legacy to learn from it.

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The Neoliberal Time Capsule of Ricki and the Flash - The Spool