Review: Mamma Mia! (2008)

[tom elce]

Mamma Mia! (2008)
1.5 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Tom Elce
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
Cast: Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård,
Pierce Brosnan, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Juan Pablo Di Pace,
Dominic Cooper, George Georgiou, Dylan Turner, Chris Jarvis, Enzo
Squillino Jr., Clare Louise Connolly
Rated: PG-13 (MPAA), PG (BBFC)

So it was that I went to heaven before I went to hell. Indeed, after
watching Christopher Nolan's brilliant "The Dark Knight" I returned to
the cinema about an hour later, forced to endure the miserable mess
that is Phyllida Lloyd's "Mamma Mia!" A poorly choreographed movie
musical-cum-tribute to ABBA helmed by a director whose previous body
of work is contained entirely in the theatre, the film is an ineptly
staged genre film to begin with. The fact that it can't carry a tune
doesn't help and, as such, the end result is a musical that will do
less for the music of ABBA than 2007's "Across the Universe" did for
The Beatles' tunes.

In a world without paternity tests, soon to be wed 20-year-old Sophie
(Amanda Seyfried) invites under false pretenses three potential
fathers of hers - Bill (Stellan Skarsgård), Sam (Pierce Brosnan) and
Harry (Colin Firth) - along for the wedding ceremony. Having rounded
them up at the island on which she is set to get hitched, she intends
to weed out her biological father from the threesome. Their
reappearance, however, doesn't go down so well with Sophie's mother
Donna (Meryl Streep), for whom the reemergence of three former lovers
brings up old memories and deepens her guilt for not being able to
answer her daughter's paternal questions.

How exactly Sophie expects she'll be able to identify her father out
of three potential parents isn't clearly established. As with the
remainder of the flimsy plot, the idea seems merely an excuse for
having the actors perform shoehorned-in ABBA hits to full dance
routines and supported choruses. They all act like idiots, basically,
behaving much below their ages - Sophie especially comes across more
like a twitty early teen than someone into early adulthood - and
coming across as uniformly shrill, nobody more so than Donna's friends
and former singing partners Rosie (Julie Walters) and Tanya (Christine
Baranski). The film's idea of being smutty is to have those two make
constant sexual references that (pardon the pun) come across as limp.
A whole song routine between Tanya and a much-younger suitor is horrid
to watch, not least because the scene seems so pleased with itself.

The story itself doesn't really go anywhere, instead meandering along
in its own aimless way, its idea of action involving characters
basically going over and over the same points, arguing over the same
things several times without reaching a solution (until, that is, the
ending) or basically acting like human jukeboxes. A couple of the
tunes are admittedly catchy, as in the performance of the titular
track, though the bulk of "Mamma Mia!'"s song-and-dance routines are
either obnoxious or not half as funny as they think themselves.

Though her character's marriage story ultimately takes a backseat to
her onscreen mother's own, far more dull subplot, Amanda Seyfried is
memorable for being sheerly terrible as Sophie, broadly emoting
whenever subtlety would have been preferred and at other times looking
so vacant it's amazing the film doesn't cut away to the image of a
tumbleweed rolling by. As mother Donna, Meryl Streep is undeniably a
fine actress and one of the production's more capable singers, though
she too is guilty of selling herself short. Supporting her and
appearing content with themselves solely by appearance, Julie Walters
and Christine Baranski are further illustrations of the cast's content
mediocrity. As for their singing, it, like so many of the others',
leaves a lot to be desired. Of the male parts, Pierce Brosnan butchers
every song he sings but nonetheless does fine essaying Sam Carmichael,
while Colin Firth does decent work as Harry. Stellan Skarsgård,
finally, barely registers as Bill.

Perhaps wanting to be this year's "Hairspray" but lacking the energy
and wit of that film, "Mamma Mia!" seems to consider itself passable
by association with ABBA music. It's an unambitious failure, making
little effort to supplement the plot with logic or the characters with
a fully-functioning brain, telling a story that could never have had a
decent cinematic resolution and sticking its tongue so forcefully into
its own cheek that it tears a whole and leaves a bloody mess. I
remember laughing once, though it was a fleeting one that I can't, for
the life of me, associate with a particular moment in a film so
unmemorable that it is already evaporating from my conscious.