Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Usually, the combination of ABBA, a Greek island and dancing men in Speedos would be irresistible enough to pull people to the theatre. The only drawback to this original celluloid adaptation of the hit musical is the actors.
A former James Bond (Pierce Brosnan), a perpetual Mr. Darcy (Colin Firth) and a pirate from Pirates of the Caribbean (Stellan Skarsgard) hardly add up likely potential fathers. And Meryl Streep, though an amazing actress, is hardly the person you would have in mind for a former singer, a tomboyish, overall-wearing free spirit 's but that just makes the movie all the more unexpected.
I walked into the theater expecting tanned, beautiful people dancing and singing, with perhaps love story undertones 's and instead got a web of stories, a bouquet of songs and a pocketful of emotions I didn't expect.
The story begins with fatherless young Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) sending out invitations to her wedding to three men. In a desire to find out who her real father is, she has read her mother's diary and discovered three potential fathers. Wanting her real father to give her away at the wedding, she decides to invite them without her mother's knowledge.
What she didn't expect was that all three of them would show up. What unravels after that is a series of over-the-top choreographed dance scenes, tearful confrontations and a lot of plot twists that really don't make sense. But even that makes the film a bit more lovable.
Once Sophie's mother (Meryl Streep) discovers that her three former loves are there, old loves are rekindled and some old flames completely extinguished. What
could have been a sort of competitive love story, with the three men vying for the affection of Meryl Streep (as well as her daughter), turned into a heart-warming tale of male bonding, mother-daughter love and the overarching tone of girl power.
Not to say the movie is entirely cheesy 's there are some hilarious scenes. The fact that the actors are not normally musical stars makes the movie all the more watchable. The scene that comes to mind is the show-stopping show tune done up by Meryl Streep, Julie Walters and Christine Baranski. Done up in leather and feathers, these middle-aged ladies show that age doesn't matter when you want to have fun.
The nice thing about the movie is its unpredictability. Despite the surface glitter and frivolity, the story has a deeper feel-good message, and even if you think you know what's going to happen, you're probably going to be wrong.
Shot in a gorgeous location that is sure to spark tourism for the region, the movie shows us just what life could be like on a Greek island, if we had millions to spend and nothing really to do but repair an old hotel.
The producers of the movie may have thought that bigger is better, but in this case I think less would have been more. If the action on screen is too over-the-top for you, I recommend just closing your eyes and listening to pretty much every ABBA song that could be jammed into the film. And if you don't like ABBA, you probably shouldn't go.
The movie is hardly going to hurt anyone's career, but it seems like the actors are taking a fulfilling Greek vacation without realizing that they're actually shooting a movie.
"Mamma Mia!" might be better as a stage play, but on screen it doesn't do too badly either.
Opening in Latvia on Aug. 21, Lithuania on Aug. 17, and currently showing in Estonia.
