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Directed By: Phyllida Lloyd
Starring:
Meryl Streep as Donna
Pierce Brosnan as Sam
Amanda Seyfried as Sophie
While watching Mamma Mia! for the second time, I realized that I had learned a lot from this jovial movie musical. Firstly, Pierce Brosnan cannot sing. Secondly, Meryl Streep’s delightful voice in A Prairie Home Companion was not just a fluke…she really can sing. Thirdly, Julie Walters is a diverse talent with a keen sense of humor. And, finally, Amanda Seyfried is destined for great things. That the film constantly teeters on the verge of falling into “so bad, it’s good” territory hardly matters. What matters is that it never does. The opening scenes are shrill and filled with lots of women screaming happily, dancing around awkwardly, and celebrating the arrival of their equally-enthusiastic friends. After this, I was underwhelmed, prepared for more of the same. Fortunately, though there are the occasional semblances of these earlier scenes, as the film progresses, they are balanced out by better-choreographed dancing, more subtle performances, and less shrieking. It just takes a little while to find its footing but, once it does, it becomes a surprisingly effective musical.
The women in the beginning are Donna (Streep) and Sophie (Seyfried), mother and daughter respectively. They live on a Greek island and run an unsuccessful resort together; it’s a beautiful place and the perfect setting for a movie like this. It is, we learn, the eve of Sophie’s wedding day and the other women arriving are Sophie’s bridesmaids, Ali and Lisa (Ashley Lilley and Rachel McDowall) and Donna’s best friends, Rosie and Tanya (Julie Walters and Christine Baranski). Arriving later are three unexpected visitors…unexpected by Donna, but invited by Sophie. They are Sam (Brosnan), Harry (Colin Firth), and Bill (Stellan Skarsgård). Each of them could be Sophie’s long lost father, someone she has been desperate to meet ever since she was young, and she invited all of them with the expectations that she will see her dad and know it is him instantly. Needless to say, her plan does not work out well.
Upon meeting them for the first time, she has no idea which one is more likely than the others. We do, given the general rule in movies like these, but I suppose we could be wrong. On top of this predicament, Donna is devastated when she sees them, believing that they have come to somehow ruin Sophie’s wedding. We’re not sure why she would think so; after all, not one of them even suspects that Sophie could be his daughter and, from what we gather, Donna showed them nothing less than a good time during their times in Greece. There is a lapse in logic here, I’ll admit, but it ultimately doesn’t hurt the film anymore than it hurt the long-running stage play. The rest of the film, spreading the already limited plot dangerously thin, sings and dances through a multitude of scenes, most primarily existing to pad the runtime, showcase more ABBA hits, and lead us to this film’s somewhat awkward conclusion.
Riding high off of 2007’s Hairspray and now Mamma Mia!, movie musicals seem to be back with a vengeance. And though this one feels a little shaky next to the superior Hairspray, it holds up well enough to keep female audiences entertained and their male counterparts, at least, partially satisfied. The cast, no matter how awkwardly-assembled it is, performs admirably; half of them cannot sing, but they know how to give solid performances. They throw themselves into even the cheesiest of pop ballads as if they are gunning for an Academy Award, lending to the notion that the film is always somehow poking fun of itself beneath all of the melodrama. One has to look no further than the sprinkle of slow-motion dance moves, the sight of fifty buff male swimmers in Speedos dancing down the boardwalk, and the song, “Money, Money, Money” to recognize whether or not this movie is for them. Checking my manhood card at the door, I must admit that I actually had a lot of fun.
The women in the beginning are Donna (Streep) and Sophie (Seyfried), mother and daughter respectively. They live on a Greek island and run an unsuccessful resort together; it’s a beautiful place and the perfect setting for a movie like this. It is, we learn, the eve of Sophie’s wedding day and the other women arriving are Sophie’s bridesmaids, Ali and Lisa (Ashley Lilley and Rachel McDowall) and Donna’s best friends, Rosie and Tanya (Julie Walters and Christine Baranski). Arriving later are three unexpected visitors…unexpected by Donna, but invited by Sophie. They are Sam (Brosnan), Harry (Colin Firth), and Bill (Stellan Skarsgård). Each of them could be Sophie’s long lost father, someone she has been desperate to meet ever since she was young, and she invited all of them with the expectations that she will see her dad and know it is him instantly. Needless to say, her plan does not work out well.
Upon meeting them for the first time, she has no idea which one is more likely than the others. We do, given the general rule in movies like these, but I suppose we could be wrong. On top of this predicament, Donna is devastated when she sees them, believing that they have come to somehow ruin Sophie’s wedding. We’re not sure why she would think so; after all, not one of them even suspects that Sophie could be his daughter and, from what we gather, Donna showed them nothing less than a good time during their times in Greece. There is a lapse in logic here, I’ll admit, but it ultimately doesn’t hurt the film anymore than it hurt the long-running stage play. The rest of the film, spreading the already limited plot dangerously thin, sings and dances through a multitude of scenes, most primarily existing to pad the runtime, showcase more ABBA hits, and lead us to this film’s somewhat awkward conclusion.
Riding high off of 2007’s Hairspray and now Mamma Mia!, movie musicals seem to be back with a vengeance. And though this one feels a little shaky next to the superior Hairspray, it holds up well enough to keep female audiences entertained and their male counterparts, at least, partially satisfied. The cast, no matter how awkwardly-assembled it is, performs admirably; half of them cannot sing, but they know how to give solid performances. They throw themselves into even the cheesiest of pop ballads as if they are gunning for an Academy Award, lending to the notion that the film is always somehow poking fun of itself beneath all of the melodrama. One has to look no further than the sprinkle of slow-motion dance moves, the sight of fifty buff male swimmers in Speedos dancing down the boardwalk, and the song, “Money, Money, Money” to recognize whether or not this movie is for them. Checking my manhood card at the door, I must admit that I actually had a lot of fun.
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