You know how awkward it is when your favourite auntie tries to speak like a rapper to show that she’s still down with the kids? Is a gran who you expect to be growing old gracefully going to be able to carry off a crop top and skintight jeans?
It might be a bit embarrassing for the family, but at least her late onset midlife crisis isn’t being flashed up on a giant screen for millions of people to see.
Which brings us to Meryl Streep. Yes, that Meryl Streep, Oscar-laden actress, one-time portrayer of, among others, Margaret Thatcher and currently to be seen in cinemas everywhere as suffragette campaigner Emmeline Pankhurst.
She’s 66 now, but that didn’t stop her saying yes when the script for Rikki And The Flash turned up on her doorstep.
In this odd offering, showing at Royston’s Picture Palace on Friday night, the first lady of film plays an ageing rock star trying to reconnect with her nearest and dearest after a life spent selfishly in the spotlight.
To be fair, the cringe factor is nowhere near as high as you’d expect, thanks to the talent on show – as well as la Streep, there’s Kevin Kline on set and Jonathan Demme calling the shots with Diablo Cody providing the words.
But the critics have been muted, and it’s generally accepted that this ‘feelgood comedy’ won’t be earning Meryl any more statuettes.
The second film at the Picture Palace this weekend has women front and centre, too, but in Trainwreck – showing on Saturday night – crass comedy director Judd Apatow shows that his idea of giving women strong roles is to allow them to behave just as appallingly as the leading men in some of his other movies. Rising US comedy star Amy Schumer, who also wrote the script plays a promiscuous magazine writer who meets the man of her dreams but finds it hard to commit.
After darker, and duller, offerings in recent years such as Funny People and This Is 40, some have called this a return to form – but whether you think that’s a good thing or not depends on how you view Apatow’s other output.
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