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Movie Review: Mamma Mia!
'Mamma Mia!' a fun, music-filled romp
By John Wirt
jwirt@theadvocate.com
Advocate movie critic
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out of 4 stars.
Rather than do a tribute show with imposters in ’70s costumes or a musical revue featuring the songs of Abba, that Swedish pop group whose hits include “Dancing Queen,” “Waterloo” and “Mamma Mia,” producer Judy Craymer hired playwright Catherine Johnson to shape a story that would work alongside Abba songs.
The result was Mamma Mia!, which opened in 1999 at London’s Prince Edward Theatre. The Abba musical subsequently became a worldwide hit.
Now there’s Mamma Mia! The Movie. British theater and opera director Phyllida Lloyd, director of the original London production, expands the stage musical through location shooting in Greece, most of it on the island of Skopelos.
In case you’re not among the 30 million people who’ve seen Mamma Mia! on the stage, the show’s plot revolves around 20-year-old Sophie and her strong-willed single mom, Donna.
Sophie dreams of meeting the father she never knew. She invites three men whom she suspects of being her father to her wedding, to be held on the Greek island of Kalokairi, where her mother runs a crumbling hotel that’s perched above the sparkling blue sea. The scene is ripe for conflict, not to mention farce.
Meryl Streep heads the cast as the fiercely independent Donna, the woman whose romantic adventures of two decades led to this mess. Even amidst the fluffy material that is Mamma Mia!, Streep flashes her Oscar-winning talent in some moving scenes. She also sings and dances up a storm, hitting a few off-key notes, though many moviegoers won’t notice, especially amidst the high-spirited romp that surrounds her.
Pierce Brosnan, playing Sam, one of Sophie’s three possible dads, sings noticeably less well than Streep and other cast members. That can be a distraction, but the actor otherwise fills the role of the long-gone-lover who’s suddenly back in Donna’s reluctant sights. Brosnan also runs with the movie’s frequently loopy spirit.
The same goes for the other prospective dads, Colin Firth as stick-in-the-mud Harry and Stellan Skarsgård as writer-adventurer Bill. As for Donna’s wedding guest girlfriends, the game Christine Baranski and Julie Walters are mostly in it for laughs and lots of singing and dancing.
Mamma Mia! begins badly as Donna and her girlfriends and Sophie and her girlfriends engage in orgies of squealing, pre-wedding reunions. But once the squealing ends, the director and cast tell the story and sing the hook- and melody-filled pop gems that made the stage musical a hit. True to the Mediterranean location, Greek choruses frequently get in the act.
Mamma Mia! looks a bit rushed and sloppy. It’s not elegant in the manner of classic MGM musicals. And if there are any Fred Astaires or Gene Kellys or Cyd Charisses out there, they’re not in this movie.
But the big-screen Mamma Mia! rises above through an A-list leading lady and, like its stage-musical predecessor, skillful exploitation of the fun and pathos inherent in Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus’ enduring music.
