OMIGOD MAMMA MIA WTF WAS THAT AWESOME.
OH GOD. MAMMA MIA IS LIKE CRACK. CRACK.
Sorry, had to get that out there FIRST.
So. Mamma Mia is FINALLY in sneak previews - sneak previews, FAIL - in Singapore. I still have no clue why the movie took two months to hit our cinemas, but those two months were more or less made of enormous amounts of fail. Of course, I had to get tickets as soon as possible, since I have been dying to see this film since I first heard of it. See my first flaily entry over Mamma Mia here - and to quote a line from that, I will watch the movie, probably a million times, even if it is so bad that it makes me bleed from every orifice. BECAUSE MERYL IS IN IT AND SHE IS SINGING.
HA HA. THAT STILL STANDS TRUE. Fortunately, however, the movie wasn't dire! Woo hoo! Quite the contrary, in fact - which means repeat viewings, of which there will be MANY, won't be just an exercise in pure fangirliness, but also because, well. This movie really makes me just... HAPPY.
And man, I'm going to need that over the next few weeks. Not that I should complain, since I emphatically have NOT worked over this weekend the way I should have. But I did go into work on Sunday, for a few hours, and kept getting bugged by phone calls from my bosses all weekend. Annoying much? VERY.
NEVER MIND. NOW I HAS MAMMA MIA. And so do all of you. EPIC FLAIL BENEATH THE CUT. XD (Obviously, spoilers ahoy, though surely you have all seen this already and I am WAY BEHIND THE CURVE BECAUSE MY COUNTRY SUCKS AT BRINGING IN MOVIES IN A TIMELY FASHION.)
FLAIL FLAIL FLAIL
As opposed to my XF review from a while back, I AM FLAILING FIRST, AND WRITING A SERIOUS REVIEW LATER. SO, SOME CAPSLOCK AND MUCH DORKY FLAILAGE WILL ENSUE. BE WARNED.
OMG OMG OMG OMG. THE MOVIE WAS... FUCK. IT WAS SO - AMAZING. I didn't think I was getting into it at first... mainly because you have to get used to the show and how it's deliberately stagey and just FULL-ON CHEESY in parts. Unlike Chicago, which located all the song-and-dance numbers in the imagination or psyche of the characters currently singing, Mamma Mia is FREAKIN' OLD-SCHOOL. People burst into song. And dance. IN UNISON. FOR NO REASON OTHER THAN THAT THEY'RE IN GREECE AND IT'S TOTES NATURAL TO BE SINGING ABBA BECAUSE HAI, IT MAKES YOU HAPPY. And some moments were just so... over-the-top, you know? Like, Mamma Mia, as a number - I'd seen clips of it in the trailer, and was always secretly a little appalled for poor Meryl, because it looked so embarrassing for her to be writhing around on the floor singing that. But once you get past that, and settle into the movie, ASDKLFJLASDJALSJDLASDALHFLASDAS. Like, for serious.
I'm not going to be very coherent, but I'll try. First off:
OH MY FRIGGIN' GOD MERYL STREEP. I already knew I'd love this performance from the soundtrack, because ARGH. I've always loved her singing voice, way back from her Postcards From The Edge days (I pimp this video out at every opportunity), so realising she was in a musical? YAY TIMES A MILLION. Even though, seriously, I totes DID NOT LIKE Mamma Mia when I saw a stage production of it here in Singapore. I literally hated the book. HATED IT. It was so stupid. Hai, three possible fathers? WHATEVAR. But then the movie started attracting the most awesome cast to ever awesome, and I was done.
And honestly? Meryl is frickin' unbelievable in this. She holds the entire damn movie together, because her performance is just so impossibly brave: she's over-the-top when it's called for (I've never seen her quite so sassy or blustery or just all-out weepy, like in the Chiquitita scene), but also manages to ground the entire show with some moments of genuine emotional pathos. I don't think any other actress could have played the role of Donna onscreen and made it work - because she'd have to play up the role's camp factor (OMG, Super Trouper daggy dancing!) but also break your heart in a close-up. And make you believe equally in both aspects of the character. SHE DID IT, THOUGH.
Let's talk about the love story first.
HAI PIERCE BROSNAN. YOU REMAIN HOT EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE:
(A) GETTING VERY VERY OLD INDEED AND A BIT JOWLY TO BOOT and
(B) CANNOT SING AT ALL.
Urm. Honestly, the Sam/Donna relationship made me roll my eyes when I watched the original stage show. Maybe I was in a particularly crappy mood, and I was more receptive this time because it's Meryl and I'd buy anything she does. That's probably it... plus I think the relationship and connection just comes across better onscreen. I'd literally forgotten how it ends, and how Sam drops to his knees and proposes to Donna on the spot when Sophie and Sky decide not to get married. I actually couldn't keep myself from going "Awwww!" at this point, and I just... LOVED IT. Seriously.
I think it's because Meryl sold it so amazingly well, especially in, OHMIGOD. THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL. How fucking epic was that song and that performance?! That entire moment on the clifftop, when Donna was singing her heart out to Sam - that's what I'm talking about when I said that Meryl managed to ground her character in something real. Yes, she's singing, and yes, she's singing an ABBA song. Which pretty much guarantees that you'll have a hard time forgetting about how CAMP that moment probably is. But she managed to do both those things and yet act right through them, and make them part of a very real pain and emotion her character was experiencing. I think the fact that the movie allowed for close-ups of Meryl's face just made it a lot easier to sympathise with Donna's heartbreak. (Because, honestly, Mamma Mia moves too fast and doesn't bother much with characterisation or developing its plot - which is why having the ability to zoom in to, well, the face of one of the greatest living actresses ever? Essential to improving the movie.)
BUT. Much as I loved Sam/Donna, my favourite part of the movie? Was Donna's relationship with Sophie. God. It fucking BROKE ME, is what it did. I love how Donna clearly loved Sophie but didn't want to let her go just yet. I sobbed like a fucking baby throughout Slipping Through My Fingers:
More than anything else, that's a perfect melding of song and emotion and character, I think. The song itself is gorgeous and so heartbreaking - wistful and loving and just... sad, and so lyrical you'd never peg it as an ABBA song if all you knew was their disco dance hits. And watching Donna's heart break a bit more every time Sophie moved a little further away from her? *weeps* When Sophie asked Donna to give her away, and that smile just lit up Donna's face - OH GOD, I CRIED. I'M SUCH A WIMP, AREN'T I?
There is a lot more I love about this movie - the way it's filled with sunshine, and laughter, and how it doesn't take itself seriously in the least. It sparkles, Greece is beautiful, and Colin Firth is fucking hot. Christine Baranski got the opportunity to remind me why she's one of the most underrated actresses in the business. I HEART ABBA. All of that, of course, and more. But can I cap off the flail just by saying: In 20... or 30... years' time, I'd love to still have friends like Tanya and Rosie, who will drag me out to live in the moment, with a heart full of love even if it's breaking. God. I love this show.
And finally, to prove that I CAN have serious, coherent thoughts, my actual movie review for Mamma Mia... :P
Serious review
Even as a lifelong fan of movies, musicals and movie musicals, I approached the notion of a Mamma Mia! movie with a fair amount of trepidation - mainly because I had seen the stage show on which this film is based, and had not rated it highly at all. Sure, ABBA had a remarkable string of hits for a pop band born out of Eurovision, but even its classic numbers couldn't rescue what I considered to be a truly dire book. The plot was ludicrous and the characters barely developed in between songs - which came so fast and furious that the show seemed more like an excuse for an ABBA revival concert than an actual musical with a considered storyline and real, believable characters.
So colour me surprised - very surprised - when the movie started attracting a cast the calibre of which an Oscar-baiting film would have died for: namely, Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Julie Walters... not to mention Christine Baranski, Stellan Skarsgard, and Colin Firth. And then the film premiered in the States and the reviews started coming in... and even though the movie wasn't critically adored (rightfully so), it was nevertheless embraced in a way that gave me reason to be hopeful that the movie would draw on its source material but somehow manage to improve it. With a cast like that, how could it go wrong?
A quick recap: Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is about to marry Sky (Dominic Cooper), the love of her life... but she doesn't think her walk down the aisle will be complete without her father to give her away. Except, unfortunately, she has no clue who he is. But when she reads a 20-year-old diary written by her mother Donna (Streep) many summers ago, she discovers she has not one but three possible fathers. Unbeknownst to Donna, Sophie sends out wedding invitations to all of them, and soon each man - suave divorcee Sam (Brosnan), hard-living free spirit Bill (Skarsgard) and buttoned-down businessman Harry (Firth) - arrives on the romantic Greek island, eager to discover why Donna (or so they think) has chosen to rekindle a long-dead flame. Hijinks and hilarity ensue, of course, when Sophie realises she can't identify her dad just by looking at him, and Donna has to deal with losing her daughter just as much as she is confronted with her past.
Now how's that for a plot? Certainly when I saw this onstage, I couldn't get past the fact that the story was just plain ridiculous and far too contrived for my liking. Even the ABBA music - and I am a proper fan, not just one who treats it as a guilty pleasure - couldn't save the show for me. But, for some reason, the movie makes you feel less like your intelligence is being insulted, although this is probably more to do with the fact that I had finally managed to reconcile myself to the direness of the story and moved on.
But perhaps there is also something to be said for the medium of film and how it lends itself particularly well to the portrayal of the whimsical: for amidst the fluffiness and cheesy synchronised pop-dancing that informs both movie and stage musical, there are moments of emotional truth that can come across only in the flicker of uncertainty across a character's face, moments of intimacy that, in this instance, are traded for the immediacy of live theatre and, in the latter instance, come up wanting. It's for this reason that the film becomes something more than just a good adaptation of a ropey stagey musical. The uniformly talented (and game for anything) cast give their performances everything, whether it's camping it up to the nth degree - stay for a hugely entertaining, massive production number that plays in the credits - or giving to their roles the same emotional commitment they would meatier, more dramatic fare.
Of particular merit in this regard would be Streep. The film's producers must have known what a coup they achieved when she signed on to play the role, because her performance, more than any other, pulls the film out of campy oblivion and injects into it a daring, fresh rush of adrenaline and credibility that no other actress could probably manage quite so skilfully. Her Donna - a bright, sparkling creation at once flinty and world-weary - is literally the glue of the entire film. There are moments that don't quite sit right, sure. I'd imagine you would, as I did, invariably ask yourself: is that really Meryl Streep, the most Oscar-nominated and respected film actress ever, writhing on the ground belting out cheesy lyrics from Mamma Mia? Well, yes. But, now that I've seen Streep so confidently take this role as her own, I couldn't imagine another actress who could as effectively straddle the film's wildly differing shifts in tone - from high camp (Money, Money, Money or Super Trouper) to genuine pathos at the thought of Donna letting her daughter grow up and away from her (Slipping Through My Fingers), while also lending real emotional heft to a heartbreak twenty years old, as Donna informs Sam that The Winner Takes It All.
Not that this means the film is mopey and weepy - far from it. In fact, it's jacked up on about a hundred kinds of happy, shot through as it is with the quicksilver beats of ABBA's best disco tunes (Dancing Queen and Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)) and a cheeky, self-aware joie de vivre that is infectious in the extreme. The cast and crew know that they're making, well, a cheesy jukebox musical into a movie. They know this, and celebrate it, and therefore the audience does as well: who wouldn't want to jump to their feet and dance and cheer when Donna leads what appears to be the entire population of the island in a madcap dance down to the sea?
The fact that the film is actually set in Greece is probably helpful as well. The locale feels almost as much a full-fledged character as the people who actually come to life in this film. So rather than sitting in a theatre, forced to imagine but never really see the sparkling clear blue waters of the Aegean Sea, Mamma Mia! brings you there and allows you to delight in the sun and the sea and the surf.
Vocally, the cast (for the most part) acquits itself admirably, considering that none of them - aside from Seyfried - is classically trained. Again, the standout here is Streep: while she doesn't have a conventionally lovely voice, she holds a tune strongly and confidently, and belts with the best of them. What she lacks in clear, rounded tones she makes up for with power and shades of emotion. Seyfried, meanwhile, has a clear, pretty voice that allows her to really shine on sweet, up-tempo ballads like Honey, Honey and Thank You For The Music. Brosnan is perhaps the most egregious offender when it comes to bad singing, but even he proves listenable and at least stays on key. As for Baranski, Firth and Walters: they're clearly having so much fun that you forgive any bum notes they might sing and just kick back as each character finds love in his or her own way.
By no stretch of the imagination is Mamma Mia! a great film. But I suspect that, in the years to come, it will be revisited time and again by generations of movie-goers and musical-lovers, and not just because the movie boasts a fantastic lead performance from Streep. Rather, the film has captured lightning in a bottle the way Hairspray did last year, and Grease did so many years before, proving that there really is nothing quite like watching a film that so cheerfully, relentlessly celebrates life, friendship, music... and, oh yes, free hippie love!
- - - - -
AHAHAHAHA I THINK I GOT A BIT CARRIED AWAY THERE. I didn't mean for my serious review to get quite that long, but well. At least it's done, and written. Oh god. I love this movie. I need to see it AGAIN. AND AGAIN. Hopefully with a BETTER audience this time - yesterday's audience was made of quite a lot of FAIL. Like, no one laughed, or even seemed to want to bop along a little bit with the movie. I think I was the only one who whooped when the three guys came out in their... errr, costumes in the Waterloo number in the credits. SADFACE.
I cannot deal with all my fandoms right now, OMG. I've already made, like, a billion new Mamma Mia icons *points at new one*, and then yesterday I was making 9 to 5 icons, and OMG I HAVEN'T EVEN FLAILED OVER TINA FEY ON SNL YET. But since that video must have popped up on everyone's flist seven times over, I'll just have to say: OMG IT'S SO AWESOME. "AND I CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM MY HOUSE!" LMAO. MARRY ME, SARAH PALIN TINA FEY, KTHX.
Sorry, had to get that out there FIRST.
So. Mamma Mia is FINALLY in sneak previews - sneak previews, FAIL - in Singapore. I still have no clue why the movie took two months to hit our cinemas, but those two months were more or less made of enormous amounts of fail. Of course, I had to get tickets as soon as possible, since I have been dying to see this film since I first heard of it. See my first flaily entry over Mamma Mia here - and to quote a line from that, I will watch the movie, probably a million times, even if it is so bad that it makes me bleed from every orifice. BECAUSE MERYL IS IN IT AND SHE IS SINGING.
HA HA. THAT STILL STANDS TRUE. Fortunately, however, the movie wasn't dire! Woo hoo! Quite the contrary, in fact - which means repeat viewings, of which there will be MANY, won't be just an exercise in pure fangirliness, but also because, well. This movie really makes me just... HAPPY.
And man, I'm going to need that over the next few weeks. Not that I should complain, since I emphatically have NOT worked over this weekend the way I should have. But I did go into work on Sunday, for a few hours, and kept getting bugged by phone calls from my bosses all weekend. Annoying much? VERY.
NEVER MIND. NOW I HAS MAMMA MIA. And so do all of you. EPIC FLAIL BENEATH THE CUT. XD (Obviously, spoilers ahoy, though surely you have all seen this already and I am WAY BEHIND THE CURVE BECAUSE MY COUNTRY SUCKS AT BRINGING IN MOVIES IN A TIMELY FASHION.)
FLAIL FLAIL FLAIL
As opposed to my XF review from a while back, I AM FLAILING FIRST, AND WRITING A SERIOUS REVIEW LATER. SO, SOME CAPSLOCK AND MUCH DORKY FLAILAGE WILL ENSUE. BE WARNED.
OMG OMG OMG OMG. THE MOVIE WAS... FUCK. IT WAS SO - AMAZING. I didn't think I was getting into it at first... mainly because you have to get used to the show and how it's deliberately stagey and just FULL-ON CHEESY in parts. Unlike Chicago, which located all the song-and-dance numbers in the imagination or psyche of the characters currently singing, Mamma Mia is FREAKIN' OLD-SCHOOL. People burst into song. And dance. IN UNISON. FOR NO REASON OTHER THAN THAT THEY'RE IN GREECE AND IT'S TOTES NATURAL TO BE SINGING ABBA BECAUSE HAI, IT MAKES YOU HAPPY. And some moments were just so... over-the-top, you know? Like, Mamma Mia, as a number - I'd seen clips of it in the trailer, and was always secretly a little appalled for poor Meryl, because it looked so embarrassing for her to be writhing around on the floor singing that. But once you get past that, and settle into the movie, ASDKLFJLASDJALSJDLASDALHFLASDAS. Like, for serious.
I'm not going to be very coherent, but I'll try. First off:
OH MY FRIGGIN' GOD MERYL STREEP. I already knew I'd love this performance from the soundtrack, because ARGH. I've always loved her singing voice, way back from her Postcards From The Edge days (I pimp this video out at every opportunity), so realising she was in a musical? YAY TIMES A MILLION. Even though, seriously, I totes DID NOT LIKE Mamma Mia when I saw a stage production of it here in Singapore. I literally hated the book. HATED IT. It was so stupid. Hai, three possible fathers? WHATEVAR. But then the movie started attracting the most awesome cast to ever awesome, and I was done.
And honestly? Meryl is frickin' unbelievable in this. She holds the entire damn movie together, because her performance is just so impossibly brave: she's over-the-top when it's called for (I've never seen her quite so sassy or blustery or just all-out weepy, like in the Chiquitita scene), but also manages to ground the entire show with some moments of genuine emotional pathos. I don't think any other actress could have played the role of Donna onscreen and made it work - because she'd have to play up the role's camp factor (OMG, Super Trouper daggy dancing!) but also break your heart in a close-up. And make you believe equally in both aspects of the character. SHE DID IT, THOUGH.
Let's talk about the love story first.
HAI PIERCE BROSNAN. YOU REMAIN HOT EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE:
(A) GETTING VERY VERY OLD INDEED AND A BIT JOWLY TO BOOT and
(B) CANNOT SING AT ALL.
Urm. Honestly, the Sam/Donna relationship made me roll my eyes when I watched the original stage show. Maybe I was in a particularly crappy mood, and I was more receptive this time because it's Meryl and I'd buy anything she does. That's probably it... plus I think the relationship and connection just comes across better onscreen. I'd literally forgotten how it ends, and how Sam drops to his knees and proposes to Donna on the spot when Sophie and Sky decide not to get married. I actually couldn't keep myself from going "Awwww!" at this point, and I just... LOVED IT. Seriously.
I think it's because Meryl sold it so amazingly well, especially in, OHMIGOD. THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL. How fucking epic was that song and that performance?! That entire moment on the clifftop, when Donna was singing her heart out to Sam - that's what I'm talking about when I said that Meryl managed to ground her character in something real. Yes, she's singing, and yes, she's singing an ABBA song. Which pretty much guarantees that you'll have a hard time forgetting about how CAMP that moment probably is. But she managed to do both those things and yet act right through them, and make them part of a very real pain and emotion her character was experiencing. I think the fact that the movie allowed for close-ups of Meryl's face just made it a lot easier to sympathise with Donna's heartbreak. (Because, honestly, Mamma Mia moves too fast and doesn't bother much with characterisation or developing its plot - which is why having the ability to zoom in to, well, the face of one of the greatest living actresses ever? Essential to improving the movie.)
BUT. Much as I loved Sam/Donna, my favourite part of the movie? Was Donna's relationship with Sophie. God. It fucking BROKE ME, is what it did. I love how Donna clearly loved Sophie but didn't want to let her go just yet. I sobbed like a fucking baby throughout Slipping Through My Fingers:
More than anything else, that's a perfect melding of song and emotion and character, I think. The song itself is gorgeous and so heartbreaking - wistful and loving and just... sad, and so lyrical you'd never peg it as an ABBA song if all you knew was their disco dance hits. And watching Donna's heart break a bit more every time Sophie moved a little further away from her? *weeps* When Sophie asked Donna to give her away, and that smile just lit up Donna's face - OH GOD, I CRIED. I'M SUCH A WIMP, AREN'T I?
There is a lot more I love about this movie - the way it's filled with sunshine, and laughter, and how it doesn't take itself seriously in the least. It sparkles, Greece is beautiful, and Colin Firth is fucking hot. Christine Baranski got the opportunity to remind me why she's one of the most underrated actresses in the business. I HEART ABBA. All of that, of course, and more. But can I cap off the flail just by saying: In 20... or 30... years' time, I'd love to still have friends like Tanya and Rosie, who will drag me out to live in the moment, with a heart full of love even if it's breaking. God. I love this show.
And finally, to prove that I CAN have serious, coherent thoughts, my actual movie review for Mamma Mia... :P
Serious review
Even as a lifelong fan of movies, musicals and movie musicals, I approached the notion of a Mamma Mia! movie with a fair amount of trepidation - mainly because I had seen the stage show on which this film is based, and had not rated it highly at all. Sure, ABBA had a remarkable string of hits for a pop band born out of Eurovision, but even its classic numbers couldn't rescue what I considered to be a truly dire book. The plot was ludicrous and the characters barely developed in between songs - which came so fast and furious that the show seemed more like an excuse for an ABBA revival concert than an actual musical with a considered storyline and real, believable characters.
So colour me surprised - very surprised - when the movie started attracting a cast the calibre of which an Oscar-baiting film would have died for: namely, Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Julie Walters... not to mention Christine Baranski, Stellan Skarsgard, and Colin Firth. And then the film premiered in the States and the reviews started coming in... and even though the movie wasn't critically adored (rightfully so), it was nevertheless embraced in a way that gave me reason to be hopeful that the movie would draw on its source material but somehow manage to improve it. With a cast like that, how could it go wrong?
A quick recap: Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is about to marry Sky (Dominic Cooper), the love of her life... but she doesn't think her walk down the aisle will be complete without her father to give her away. Except, unfortunately, she has no clue who he is. But when she reads a 20-year-old diary written by her mother Donna (Streep) many summers ago, she discovers she has not one but three possible fathers. Unbeknownst to Donna, Sophie sends out wedding invitations to all of them, and soon each man - suave divorcee Sam (Brosnan), hard-living free spirit Bill (Skarsgard) and buttoned-down businessman Harry (Firth) - arrives on the romantic Greek island, eager to discover why Donna (or so they think) has chosen to rekindle a long-dead flame. Hijinks and hilarity ensue, of course, when Sophie realises she can't identify her dad just by looking at him, and Donna has to deal with losing her daughter just as much as she is confronted with her past.
Now how's that for a plot? Certainly when I saw this onstage, I couldn't get past the fact that the story was just plain ridiculous and far too contrived for my liking. Even the ABBA music - and I am a proper fan, not just one who treats it as a guilty pleasure - couldn't save the show for me. But, for some reason, the movie makes you feel less like your intelligence is being insulted, although this is probably more to do with the fact that I had finally managed to reconcile myself to the direness of the story and moved on.
But perhaps there is also something to be said for the medium of film and how it lends itself particularly well to the portrayal of the whimsical: for amidst the fluffiness and cheesy synchronised pop-dancing that informs both movie and stage musical, there are moments of emotional truth that can come across only in the flicker of uncertainty across a character's face, moments of intimacy that, in this instance, are traded for the immediacy of live theatre and, in the latter instance, come up wanting. It's for this reason that the film becomes something more than just a good adaptation of a ropey stagey musical. The uniformly talented (and game for anything) cast give their performances everything, whether it's camping it up to the nth degree - stay for a hugely entertaining, massive production number that plays in the credits - or giving to their roles the same emotional commitment they would meatier, more dramatic fare.
Of particular merit in this regard would be Streep. The film's producers must have known what a coup they achieved when she signed on to play the role, because her performance, more than any other, pulls the film out of campy oblivion and injects into it a daring, fresh rush of adrenaline and credibility that no other actress could probably manage quite so skilfully. Her Donna - a bright, sparkling creation at once flinty and world-weary - is literally the glue of the entire film. There are moments that don't quite sit right, sure. I'd imagine you would, as I did, invariably ask yourself: is that really Meryl Streep, the most Oscar-nominated and respected film actress ever, writhing on the ground belting out cheesy lyrics from Mamma Mia? Well, yes. But, now that I've seen Streep so confidently take this role as her own, I couldn't imagine another actress who could as effectively straddle the film's wildly differing shifts in tone - from high camp (Money, Money, Money or Super Trouper) to genuine pathos at the thought of Donna letting her daughter grow up and away from her (Slipping Through My Fingers), while also lending real emotional heft to a heartbreak twenty years old, as Donna informs Sam that The Winner Takes It All.
Not that this means the film is mopey and weepy - far from it. In fact, it's jacked up on about a hundred kinds of happy, shot through as it is with the quicksilver beats of ABBA's best disco tunes (Dancing Queen and Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)) and a cheeky, self-aware joie de vivre that is infectious in the extreme. The cast and crew know that they're making, well, a cheesy jukebox musical into a movie. They know this, and celebrate it, and therefore the audience does as well: who wouldn't want to jump to their feet and dance and cheer when Donna leads what appears to be the entire population of the island in a madcap dance down to the sea?
The fact that the film is actually set in Greece is probably helpful as well. The locale feels almost as much a full-fledged character as the people who actually come to life in this film. So rather than sitting in a theatre, forced to imagine but never really see the sparkling clear blue waters of the Aegean Sea, Mamma Mia! brings you there and allows you to delight in the sun and the sea and the surf.
Vocally, the cast (for the most part) acquits itself admirably, considering that none of them - aside from Seyfried - is classically trained. Again, the standout here is Streep: while she doesn't have a conventionally lovely voice, she holds a tune strongly and confidently, and belts with the best of them. What she lacks in clear, rounded tones she makes up for with power and shades of emotion. Seyfried, meanwhile, has a clear, pretty voice that allows her to really shine on sweet, up-tempo ballads like Honey, Honey and Thank You For The Music. Brosnan is perhaps the most egregious offender when it comes to bad singing, but even he proves listenable and at least stays on key. As for Baranski, Firth and Walters: they're clearly having so much fun that you forgive any bum notes they might sing and just kick back as each character finds love in his or her own way.
By no stretch of the imagination is Mamma Mia! a great film. But I suspect that, in the years to come, it will be revisited time and again by generations of movie-goers and musical-lovers, and not just because the movie boasts a fantastic lead performance from Streep. Rather, the film has captured lightning in a bottle the way Hairspray did last year, and Grease did so many years before, proving that there really is nothing quite like watching a film that so cheerfully, relentlessly celebrates life, friendship, music... and, oh yes, free hippie love!
- - - - -
AHAHAHAHA I THINK I GOT A BIT CARRIED AWAY THERE. I didn't mean for my serious review to get quite that long, but well. At least it's done, and written. Oh god. I love this movie. I need to see it AGAIN. AND AGAIN. Hopefully with a BETTER audience this time - yesterday's audience was made of quite a lot of FAIL. Like, no one laughed, or even seemed to want to bop along a little bit with the movie. I think I was the only one who whooped when the three guys came out in their... errr, costumes in the Waterloo number in the credits. SADFACE.
I cannot deal with all my fandoms right now, OMG. I've already made, like, a billion new Mamma Mia icons *points at new one*, and then yesterday I was making 9 to 5 icons, and OMG I HAVEN'T EVEN FLAILED OVER TINA FEY ON SNL YET. But since that video must have popped up on everyone's flist seven times over, I'll just have to say: OMG IT'S SO AWESOME. "AND I CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM MY HOUSE!" LMAO. MARRY ME, SARAH PALIN TINA FEY, KTHX.