When we lived in New York City, there were certain Broadway shows my wife had to drag me to. Often they were musicals. I simply wasn’t as interested in the musical extravaganzas as the more epic, “serious” plays. Ironically enough, it was usually the plays I had to be coerced into attending that I ended up enjoying the most. So, despite a fair bit of predictable ambivalence and trepidation, I decided to give Mamma Mia!, the new film based on the long-running West End/Broadway musical, the benefit of the doubt. Turns out, it was the right decision.
Sophie (the cherubic Amanda Seyfried) is 24 hours away from getting married. Her independent, self-sufficient, single mother Donna (Meryl Streep), who operates a tiny hotel on an idyllic Greek island, is finding it difficult to let go of the spirited daughter she’s raised alone from birth. The only thing missing from Sophie’s perfect wedding ceremony is a father to give her away. Problem is, she doesn’t know who her father is. Neither does her mother for that matter. Let’s just say Donna had one crazy summer 20 years ago!
Sophie’s father could be Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Harry (Colin Firth, in his third film in as many months) or Bill (Stellan Skarsgård). Without telling her mother of her plans, Sophie decides to invite all three men to her wedding, confident that she’ll recognize her dad on sight. As the guests begin pouring in, including Donna’s lifelong best girlfriends, Rosie (Julie Walters) and Tanya (Christine Baranski), Donna will come face to face with her past and her future.
Mamma Mia! feels thrown together, like the film is cobbled from the rehearsal footage rather than the best possible takes. With threadbare production values and glaringly artificial sets, the film feels, at times, like a Bollywood indie. Half of Mamma Mia! is utterly devoid of directional flourish while the other half lays it on so thick the audience is very nearly smothered to death. If all this sounds as if I disliked the film, than perhaps you should know that Mamma Mia! works spectacularly despite its best efforts at self-sabotage.
The three women who created the worldwide smash stage hit production — writer Catherine Johnson, producer Judy Craymer and director Phyllida Lloyd — reprise their roles in adapting this joyful, ecstatic story for the big screen. This is zestful, sunshine-drenched, toe-tapping camp and I defy anyone not to sing along to melodies as warm and familiar as these. If there’s a group that has produced more singable, infectiously fun music than the Swedish super group ABBA, I don’t know of them.
Little surprise, Streep gives a bracing, full-throated performance and, as she proved in A Prairie Home Companion, really can sing. Too bad the same cannot be said for Brosnan, Pierce Brosnan. When the former Bond opens his mouth in song, the audience opens theirs in derisive laughter.
Mamma Mia! is the sparkling ying to The Dark Knight’s bleak yang this weekend. For all its glaring cinematic faults, the cast and crew of Mamma Mia! have made the sort of movie that might just drive you from your theater seat and into an impromptu conga line. Who knows, you might just run into John McCain there!
© Copyright 2008 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.