Run, Merryl Streep! Run into another sassily romantic, ABBA-song-centric misadventure!
If you haven’t been living in a cave for the last 30 years, the odds are you’ve been exposed to ABBA. Love them or loathe them, they’ve remained remarkably popular in the quarter century since their breakup. With that kind of universal appeal, Mamma Mia! (based on the musical of the same name) will likely spawn a massive karaoke renaissance across a broad demographic.
Inspired by the sugary tunes of Sweden’s most notable musical export and featuring a heavyweight cast prancing around a Greek island, the film stays true to the popular West End production, written by Catherine Johnson. When Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) comes across her mother’s ellipses-filled diary and discovers she has three potential fathers, she writes them (posing as her mother) and invites them to her pending nuptials. The ensuing shenanigans and elaborately choreographed numbers are bubbly and exuberant.
The wedding also reunites Sophie’s mother Donna (Meryl Streep) with her former bandmates, the sculpted martini-quaffing cougar Tanya (Christine Baranski) and Rosie (Julie Walters), the frumpy lone-wolf author. Their disco sister routines are the highlight of the film. As the ragingly independent writer, Walters is appropriately impish, while Streep further proves she can effortlessly morph into any role and Baranski quips and flits about, her appearances verging on scene theft.
The motley trio of potential papas is amusingly hapless and unwitting to the real reason they’ve been summoned. As the successful architect who jilted Donna, Sam’s (Brosnan) baritone is passable, but he makes up for his vocal shortcomings with impeccable bone structure and presence. Surprisingly tone-savvy, Firth is sweetly magnetic as he strums and croons. Skarsgård’s roaming former hippy doesn’t belt out many tunes, but he plays the reclusive writer-cum-sailor with welcome subtlety.
Part of the draw of musicals is the characters’ urge to break into song at key moments. Mamma Mia!’s cast trills and dances continually throughout the film, and unlike the touring show, which has the benefit of an intermission, two-plus hours of it can be taxing. Thankfully, the lush backdrop and fetching extras are a pleasant distraction.
Make no mistake — Mamma Mia! isn’t a thoughtful look at family relations. It’s a sassily romantic romp on a Greek island, with feather boas aplenty — and it may cause flashbacks to those wacky days of eight-tracks, big hair and tight slacks, whether you were there or not.
