Thank You For The Music: Forget The Rest

Take the greatest hits of one of the catchiest power pop combos of all-time, string them together to make a story, add a couple of Hollywood stars, and What D’ya Know? … You Got a Show. Such is the flimsy premise for the 2008 release of Mamma Mia!

Mamma Mia! was originally a 1999 stage show. The movie features the same production team that were involved with the stage show, most notably writer Catherine Johnson and director Phyllida Lloyd, while former Abba member Benny Andersson drew up the additional musical scores. The aforementioned big names are Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan.

What results is something of a flimsy premise. For what it’s worth, Donna Sheridan (Streep) is a single mother on the remote Greek island of Skopelos. Her 20-year old daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is about to get married. Not knowing who her father is, Sophie decides to go rummaging through her mother’s diary from her summer of love and finds three prospects. Without telling her mother, she invites all three to the wedding, determined to find the guy that’s going to walk her down the aisle. The three dads (Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgard, Colin Firth) and mom have no idea why they’re there and so unfolds the somewhat farcical plot.

As an audience we really don’t have much of an idea why everyone’s there either, until the real plot is revealed. They’re all conveniently thrown together onto this tight Greek island to sing a bunch of Abba songs. And when it comes to this movie that’s the only plot that really matters. Cleverly intertwined, scratch that, clumsily thrown together, are a collection of about 20 Abba songs that will have closet case fans (are there any other kind) singing along and digging through the attic for their hidden Abba records. It’s interesting that they managed to do this, and as loosely connected as the Abba songs are to the script, there’s just enough magic in the hits themselves to make this thing work.

Some of the performances are pretty good. Streep revels in her role. At the same time as I see her taking on the intensity of Doubt, I couldn’t help but enjoy watching her let loose (looking about 20 years younger) and just seem like she was having a good time. She carries the Abba songs pretty well, especially when she puts her Oscar caliber spin on The Winner Takes It All. Playing one of Streep’s longtime buddies is renowned stage actress Christine Baranski who manages to spin a Cyd Charisse like turn on Does Your Mother Know, while the young Seyfried also has a talented voice that lends itself to several Abba songs. The rest however is somewhat pitiful. The biggest head scratcher is Pierce Brosnan who makes no effort at singing. If he’d performed one song it might have made a nice little joke, but like a drunk on karaoke night having embarrassed himself once, he just keeps coming back for more. As an actor he does bring some witty moments of comedy, but I’m sure they could have cast his role much better. Julie Walters also does a pretty bad job of Take A Chance On Me, but that’s probably more the fault of the script that has her speaking the opening verse.

I couldn’t help but think that as a movie this was terrible. There’s a story we could care less about, the dance numbers are weakly choreographed (limited to skipping and arm waving) and there’s a whole lot of excessive wailing and screaming going on that will have you reaching for the remote every few minutes. I actually found the non-musical parts to be a perfect moment to go to the bathroom, make a cup of tea, walk the dog, wash the car … you get the idea. But then every few minutes there’s an Abba song that just sucks you back in again.

Critically I have to call this movie a big miss, but paradoxically I’m tempted to watch it again. Next time however I’ll probably just keep the remote in my hand and scan skip from song to song. Recommended to Abba fans, everyone else will probably want to avoid it.

FYI: Abba males Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus both make cameos. Sadly there’s no sign of the girls though.