Mama Mia

Review By Camryn Hansen

There’s a smashing good time to be had by all in this outlandish new musical comedy by director Phyllida Lloyd.  Mama Mia, a film adaptation of the 30-year-old stage version, sings and dances the story of Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), single mom Donna’s (Meryl Streep) only child, who plans to get married in a few days at the tender age of 20.  Donna, an adventurous spirit in her youth, got pregnant with Sophie when she was seeing three different men, and never said a word to any of them about it.  Sophie thus has three potential fathers: Sam Carmichael (Pierce Brosnan), Harry Bright (Colin Firth), and Bill “Headbanger” (Stellan Skarsgård).  As her wedding approaches, Sophie combs Donna’s old diary to find their names and secretly send each of them invitations—ostensibly from Donna—hoping that when they arrive, she will immediately know her father, and ask him to give her away on her wedding day.

The three dashing father figures, all eager to return to the exotic island off the coast of Greece where they first met Donna, and where she is now living and single-handedly running an unpopular ramshackle hotel, all take breaks from their humdrum lives to show up for the wedding.  So do Donna’s sex-obsessed old girlfriends/band mates, armed with expensive beauty products, disco stage outfits, and a plethora of dildo-esque props.  At this point, everybody breaks into ABBA songs (all the music in this film is ABBA-inspired), as lost loves are rekindled, youngsters come of age, and the true meaning of parenthood rears its wistful and well-intentioned head(s). 

While the ABBA repertoire does, on the surface, seem like a curious choice for a musical, particularly one sporting a chorus of deadpan Mediterranean peasants, there is something to be said for the way that it blurs the usually obnoxious dividing line between musical die-hards, who just have to sing along with every number, and regular audience members who just happened to have lived in America at some point during the past thirty years: in the case of this film, the rest of us get to sing along too!  In a similar spirit, there is something comfortingly familial about watching actors like Streep, Brosnan and Firth, so often in serious roles (if you haven’t seen Colin Firth play Mr. Darcy in the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, you absolutely must), embrace their goofy sides to have what looks like the time of their lives in this campy extravaganza.  (As much as we love Pierce Brosnan, I’m sorry to report, he is no Gene Kelly.  His gracious, whole-hearted fumbling is, however, charming in its own right.)  It sort of feels like you’re watching your friends make asses of themselves in the school play.  Fittingly, audiences at the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival clapped their hearts out after each musical number as though the cast could actually hear it.  It’s silly, good-natured stuff that everyone with a sense of humor can honestly enjoy.  See it to test yours today!