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It’s ten years - almost to the day! - since my younger son and some of his friends introduced me to the musical film ‘Mamma Mia’. Set on a Greek island, liberally peppered with Abba songs, I liked it very much. So when I saw the DVD inexpensively at a sale, I thought it a good idea to buy a copy. However I wasn’t sure if my husband would like it; he’s not a fan of musicals, in general.
Last night he suggested we watch it, thinking it could be light and relaxing. He does like Abba songs, so I mentioned that the story is essentially written around them, with not a huge amount of plot. Indeed, I hadn’t remembered much of the story at all, other than that it involved a wedding, and Meryl Streep.
Amanda Seyfried is the real star of this, however. She plays Sophie, a young woman of twenty who is about to get married. Her mother - Meryl Streep - runs a guesthouse in a Greek island, although it’s rather run-down. She and her staff are preparing a huge feast for the wedding, and rooms for guests, and there’s clearly a lot to be done.
Sophie tells her two closest friends (and bridesmaids) that she has invited three men to the party, one of whom must be her father. Her mother never told her his name, but Sophie has found her journal from twenty years earlier, and it’s clear that there are three possible candidates. Sophia wrote to them, and they have all said they’re coming… but her mother doesn’t know.
We then meet these three very different guys: Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Harry (Colin Firth) and Bill (Stellan Skarsgård). Bill is a laid-back kind of guy who owns a boat. Harry is quite uptight, and Sam is a wealthy businessman. There are some deleted scenes - which we saw afterwards - that introduce them properly in context; these scenes probably wouldn’t have added much to the story but were very interesting to see later.
The three end up arriving together in Bill’s boat, and being led to a very dilapidated room by Sophie… who hasn’t told any of them that they might be her father. She thought she would just know when she met them, but this isn’t the case…
So there’s quite a comedy of errors, punctuated with musical numbers (sung by the cast, although in most cases they sound very Abba-like). There are huge crowds involved, and some amazing choreography. There’s humour (Colin Firth’s comic timing is superb) and some poignancy, too. And of course there’s Meryl Streep, looking so like her film daughter that I wondered if the actress was her real mother. Apparently Streep was 59 when she did this role, in which she dances and leaps about like someone at least twenty years younger.
Of course it’s all rather silly, in the way that musicals are, where everyone dances and sings while the rest of the action stops. But it looked as if everyone was thoroughly enjoying themselves, and it’s so well done that I was quite caught up in the story (such as it was). My husband had spotted that some of the scenery was set in a studio, but I hadn’t noticed; it was explained in the ‘making of’ extra which we saw later.
The one person we felt didn’t quite fit the role (and really didn’t sound at all Abba-like when singing) was Pierce Brosnan as Sam. We couldn’t quite believe in him as Sam, and would have preferred him to have rather fewer solo roles. All of the actors apparently did their own singing (in a studio) and in most cases it was excellent.
Although the UK rating is PG, and there’s nothing explicit, nor any violence, there are a lot of innuendoes. There's also quite a seductive scene part-way through, although nothing comes of it. And of course the entire storyline revolves around three different people having slept with Sophie’s mother twenty years earlier. So I wouldn't recommended it for children or any younger teens who might find this shocking or embarrassing.
But with that proviso, I would definitely recommend this for a light evening’s viewing even if you don’t like musicals in general (unless you also don’t like Abba songs - there are a lot of them!).
Review copyright 2020 Sue's DVD Reviews
