“Mamma Mia!”
D: Phyllida Lloyd
S: Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan
MANILA, Philippines—Could something so cheesy and campy be so good? In the case of “Mamma Mia!,” director Phyllida Lloyd’s rousing big-screen adaptation of the immensely popular stage musical based on the songs of the popular ’70s and ’80s Swedish pop group, Abba, the answer is a resounding “Yes!”
Lloyd skillfully weaves Abba’s tuneful repertoire into the film’s story: 20-year-old Sophie (played by Amanda Seyfried, who sings like a nightingale) is about to marry Sky (Dominic Cooper). Her life is perfect, except for one glitch—she wants her estranged biological father to walk her down the aisle on her wedding day.
Problem is, Sophie doesn’t know who he is—and, as we soon find out, neither does her mother, Donna (the sensational Meryl Streep), a former singer who now runs a beautiful but cash-strapped taverna on a remote Greek island!
The answer could be in her mother’s diary, though, because it singles out three former lovers—New York-based architect, Sam (Pierce Brosnan); British investor, Harry (Colin Firth), and Swedish writer, Bill (Stellan Skarsgard)—who consecutively dated the secretive Donna shortly before she got pregnant some two decades ago.
So, Sophie invites the clueless “paternal suspects” to her wedding, and they all accept—without her mother’s knowledge! And Donna thought she was through pining over the One True Love that got away! Mamma mia!
While we knew that Abba’s Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus were no slouches at composing songs for musical theater (they collaborated with Tim Rice on the music of 1986’s “Chess,” the stage production that spawned Whitney Houston’s No. 1 single, “I Know Him So Well,” and Murray Head’s dance chart-topper, “One Night in Bangkok”), we grew up “desensitized” to Abba’s overdubbed, Wall-of-Sound recordings and multiple, jukebox-fodder harmonies.
However, our bias against Abba’s glam-pop repertoire changed when we watched the “Mamma Mia!” musical on London’s West End in 2002. We realized then how well-loved the iconic quartet’s songs were, and how sturdily they had stood the test of time.
The theatergoers who watched with us couldn’t care less about the production’s simple but well-limned narrative—they sang along and danced every time a character would sing Abba’s irresistible tunes—from the relentlessly catchy “Dancing Queen” and the show-stopping “Super Trouper” to the sweetly provocative “Chiquitita” and “I Have a Dream.” The screen version adds something more to the musical’s heady mix: Star power—led by the Oscar-bound Streep, who glows in another thespic milestone!
They may not possess magnificent voices, but Firth and Skarsgard are appropriately cast, as well as Julie Walters and Christine Baranski, who play Donna’s zaftig gal pals. Brosnan’s “character singing” is sometimes difficult to listen to, but the dashing actor is nevertheless perfect as Streep’s dreamy paramour. The altar scene, though, is a storytelling wrinkle that could have used more ironing. But, those are minor kinks in an otherwise adorable movie.
Lloyd’s production is briskly paced and beautifully photographed. Moreover, like Adam Shankman’s relentlessly fun-filled “Hairspray,” the film benefits from its frothy verve, musical savvy and tongue-in-cheek humor (watch out for a send-up of “Titanic”).
But, there’s no question “Mamma Mia!’s” biggest asset is Streep. She delivers a back-to-back thespic showcase when she sings the dramatically moving “Slipping Through My Fingers” and the soaring “The Winner Takes It All” one after the other, and, once again, wins us over—hook, line and musical sinker!
