Mamma Mia! is like a musical class clown, trying over and over and over again to impress. Last song didn't quite stick it with you? Don't worry, there's another in two minutes! The film is best characterized by its boundless desire to please, its relentless efforts to get the viewer to have as much fun as the cast is having - a nigh-impossible achievement, by the looks of it. The star-studded cast - which includes, just for the headliners, Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Amanda Seyfried, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard - all got together to shoot on location on a Greek island, and they look like they had a whale of a time doing it. Good for them. I mean that, I really do.
This is a film adaptation of a Broadway musical that itself is based on the music of the Swedish pop band ABBA. Sophie (Seyfried) is the sunflowery daughter of Donna (Streep), the ex-hippie who runs a shambling hotel on a Greek island. Donna is all work and no play these days, but she used to be quite the opposite. The summer that Sophie came along, Donna had three successive trysts and has no idea which of the three men is Sophie's father. But on the eve of Sophie's wedding, she decides that she needs someone to walk her down the aisle, and invites the three unknowing candidates (played by Brosnan, Firth and Skarsgard) for the bash. The mystery of Sophie's father is the basic agent for the "plot".
Let's just step back and think about what is going on here. This musical is based on the songs of ABBA, which means that the original playwright Catherine Johnson put a wobbly narrative together that intends to make a story out of independently written songs. I love ABBA. This is preposterous. This is awesome.
Mamma Mia! is a bit too stupid and shallow a movie to capture the true depth of ABBA's music, which doesn't mean that it isn't a blast. Even its critics must admit this; it has no pretensions of being anything other than it is. It is a shameless vehicle for the brilliance that is ABBA, with a deeply silly story that nevertheless manages to honor the basic emotions of the songs. This is one of the few things that is genuinely clever about this movie, and one of the things that carried it for me; as botched as so many of the executional elements of this film unquestionably are, it never betrays the tone of ABBA either. I wanted little more.
This is pure, exorbitant candy-fluff, and so purely candy-fluff that it is an extremity, an outlier. It's like the camp movie of romantic musicals. The actors seem to have been hired more for being game than anything else. Pierce Brosnan, for example, plays a character who gets some big-ish singing bits, and it's not pretty. But look at that smile! It's Pierce Brosnan! He's having fun, and if he sounds like a airplane engine, at least he's being likable doing it.
I don't what the draw was for these actors, but Phyllida Lloyd (who has very clearly never directed a film before) managed to draw some very appealing presences to fulfill these stupid, stupid roles. The unstoppable Streep is the key to it all. This amazing actress, in the face of pure bubblegum material, manages to wring every bit of pathos and subtext out of the role. Despite everybody having a great time, personnel questions remain. Why is Stellan Skarsgard passing off as a former hippie? Why are Julie Walters and Christine Baranski degrading themselves as the two most insipid wannabe cougars on the face of the earth? The film's idiocy is bursting at the seams.
Enough of it, though, is very good fun. A lot of the songs stick really well; "Dancing Queen" features weathered Greek ladies abandoning their daily work and joining Meryl Streep in an exuberant number, and "The Winner Takes It All" is rendered in all its resigned anguish by Streep in a situation that merits the powerful song. The most disco numbers like "Lay All Your Love on Me" and "Voulez-Vouz" benefit from the music-video/party quality of the film. A few, like "Chiquitita" and the fascinating, ambivalent "Take a Chance on Me," flop completely. But at the end of the day, it's basically watching a filmed version of ABBA's greatest hits, performed by charming movie stars at the height of their silliness. For the most part, you ought to know whether or not this film is for you.
This is a film adaptation of a Broadway musical that itself is based on the music of the Swedish pop band ABBA. Sophie (Seyfried) is the sunflowery daughter of Donna (Streep), the ex-hippie who runs a shambling hotel on a Greek island. Donna is all work and no play these days, but she used to be quite the opposite. The summer that Sophie came along, Donna had three successive trysts and has no idea which of the three men is Sophie's father. But on the eve of Sophie's wedding, she decides that she needs someone to walk her down the aisle, and invites the three unknowing candidates (played by Brosnan, Firth and Skarsgard) for the bash. The mystery of Sophie's father is the basic agent for the "plot".
Let's just step back and think about what is going on here. This musical is based on the songs of ABBA, which means that the original playwright Catherine Johnson put a wobbly narrative together that intends to make a story out of independently written songs. I love ABBA. This is preposterous. This is awesome.
Mamma Mia! is a bit too stupid and shallow a movie to capture the true depth of ABBA's music, which doesn't mean that it isn't a blast. Even its critics must admit this; it has no pretensions of being anything other than it is. It is a shameless vehicle for the brilliance that is ABBA, with a deeply silly story that nevertheless manages to honor the basic emotions of the songs. This is one of the few things that is genuinely clever about this movie, and one of the things that carried it for me; as botched as so many of the executional elements of this film unquestionably are, it never betrays the tone of ABBA either. I wanted little more.
This is pure, exorbitant candy-fluff, and so purely candy-fluff that it is an extremity, an outlier. It's like the camp movie of romantic musicals. The actors seem to have been hired more for being game than anything else. Pierce Brosnan, for example, plays a character who gets some big-ish singing bits, and it's not pretty. But look at that smile! It's Pierce Brosnan! He's having fun, and if he sounds like a airplane engine, at least he's being likable doing it.
I don't what the draw was for these actors, but Phyllida Lloyd (who has very clearly never directed a film before) managed to draw some very appealing presences to fulfill these stupid, stupid roles. The unstoppable Streep is the key to it all. This amazing actress, in the face of pure bubblegum material, manages to wring every bit of pathos and subtext out of the role. Despite everybody having a great time, personnel questions remain. Why is Stellan Skarsgard passing off as a former hippie? Why are Julie Walters and Christine Baranski degrading themselves as the two most insipid wannabe cougars on the face of the earth? The film's idiocy is bursting at the seams.
Enough of it, though, is very good fun. A lot of the songs stick really well; "Dancing Queen" features weathered Greek ladies abandoning their daily work and joining Meryl Streep in an exuberant number, and "The Winner Takes It All" is rendered in all its resigned anguish by Streep in a situation that merits the powerful song. The most disco numbers like "Lay All Your Love on Me" and "Voulez-Vouz" benefit from the music-video/party quality of the film. A few, like "Chiquitita" and the fascinating, ambivalent "Take a Chance on Me," flop completely. But at the end of the day, it's basically watching a filmed version of ABBA's greatest hits, performed by charming movie stars at the height of their silliness. For the most part, you ought to know whether or not this film is for you.
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