Meryl Streep Stars in Mamma Mia
Summer Fun on a Greek Island
By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 31, 2008
For pure Summer fun it doesn't get better than an escape to a run down hotel on a small Greek island. Even if you do your frequent flying, as we did, at the North Adams Movieplex. Once the lights went out we were swept up by the saturated colors of lush cinematography (Haris Zambarloukos) and the guilty pleasure of a spate of ABBA tunes in the rather gratifying film "Mamma Mia."
The film was thoroughly enjoyable despite the uneven direction of Phyllida Lloyd and wretchedly awful singing of a fading leading man, Pierce Brosnan. Clearly they cast him for the pretty face and not the croaky voice.
However much we were caught up in the film it compared unfavorably to the experience of seeing the musical on stage in London. We saw the play largely at the urging of the hotel concierge who sold us two hard to get tickets. Two singles as it turned out and we met in the lobby during intermission. I went into the theatre as a skeptic and emerged as an ABBA fan. Who could resist those encores when the cast came out in vintage disco outfits for several more numbers as the audience stood, cheered and stomped.
During my years as a music critic, like most of my peers, I refused to even listen to the Swedish pop band. Finally putting an ABBA album on the turntable I actually had to take off the shrink wrap. More conveniently I bought a CD and we enjoyed hearing the music which evoked our time in London when "Mamma Mia" was the highlight of an intensive week of theatre.
The difference is that on stage from our somewhat distant seats we could feel the joy of the music and the romance of the plot. The trade off with the film is that we were too vividly confronted with the mega watt smiles and ecstatic shrieks of joy as Donna (Meryl Streep) was reunited with her best friends and fellow performers, Rosie (Julie Walters), and Tanya (Christine Baranski). There are similar girlie shrieks and giggles when Donna's daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), who is to be married the next day, greets her maids of honor.
Sophie is anxious to share with her best friends a deep dark secret. She found her mother's diary for the summer in which she was conceived out of wedlock. It seems that there were three possible fathers. She has invited all of them to the wedding: Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Bill (Stellan Skarsgard) and Harry (Colin Firth). Donna doesn't know that these former boyfriends have arrived for the wedding and are stashed to room together in the attic of the goat house. There is amusing male bonding as the men discover how and why they are there. As well as their experiences with Donna some twenty years earlier.
From there the plot thickens. Well, not really. The story line is a rather thin soup. A heady broth laced with those catchy ABBA tunes. The trick here was to combine some of the all time most successful pop tunes into some kind of ersatz play and then film. It is really the music that carries the play but also proves to be the sticky point in the film.
There are joyous moments such as Meryl Streep bouncing on her bed like a trampoline in 'Dancing Queen" Donna and her friends bound out of the bedroom and through the streets of the Greek village. The local women fall in behind in a truly joyous and hilarious rendezvous on the dock ending with Donna and her friends jumping in the water. It was an absurd triumph of implausible choreography
In the transition from stage to screen there were predictable errors. On stage the original cast was chosen for their ability to combine singing and acting. The producers opted for bankable stars to sell the film to the general public. Why take a chance on qualified but unknown performers? So Meryl Streep brings all of her marvelous star power to the role of Donna. She provides her usual terrific performance to the dramatic aspects of the role but is just adequate as a singer. Clearly she has worked hard to bring it off but she is hardly a compelling star of musicals. Most critics have concluded that this role is a hiccup in an otherwise brilliant career.
By far the outstanding performance in this film is provided by the relatively unknown ingénue Amanda Seyfried as Sophie. She is a fine actress with a rich and wonderful voice. Seyfried also has enormous and riveting eyes that the camera seems to drown in. In casting Sophie the producers were able to find the best possible performer and rely on the stars, Streep, and Brosnan, to carry the box office.
The choice of Brosnan is most unfortunate. His rendering of a fine ABBA song "SOS" is an embarrassment. It made you wince it was so terrible. As to his dramatic aspects, faggedahboutit. Brosnan has never been more than a debonair leading man with a British accent. Most of his roles, including James Bond, have been insipid. He seems capable of nothing more than a self assured smirk. Try to imagine, were he alive, Cary Grant playing the role of Sam with his wonderfully deft comic touch. That's what the character demanded.
Although they had lesser roles both Firth and Skarsgard were fine as the other dads, Harry, and Bill. Firth proved to have a charming voice and both men are far superior actors. The women playing Donna's girlfriends were quite wonderful. Rosie (Julie Walters) has one of the film's best moments in a hilarious scene set to 'Take a Chance on Me" as she desperately pursues Bill.
The audience appears to be entirely caught up by the spirit of the film. Exiting the theatre I followed several middle aged women who were acting out those infectious ABBA tunes.
Now I have to brace myself for more contentious e mails from my friend Steve. He really hates ABBA and can't forgive me for saying anything nice about them. Seems that I have lost a lot of my street cred. Oh well.