se71

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October 06, 2008

Mamma Mia

The review of the film, not the stage musical.

I got dragged (though not kicking and screaming, I like Abba a lot) to the cinema to see this last night. I was quite interested to see what this would be like, quite apprehensive about it, and was pleased and disappointed in equal measure.

Lets start with the positive. The singing was really pretty good. It is first and foremost a musical, so if you do not get the music right, you're in real trouble. The only fly in that particular ointment was Pierce Brosnan - listening to him was tough going. The musical numbers themselves were well coreographed, hardly ever boring, and worth watching. The premise of the story, of a young woman inviting three men to her wedding to try and discover which one is her father is also interesting, and the Greek island setting is also beautiful and well used. Also, the three main actresses are very good.

But.

The songs are shoehorned into this story like a size 10 foot into a size 4 sandle. They have only managed to get a few toes of meaning to poke through the strap of plot. Err, hmm, that analogy doesn't really work does it. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that the plot progresses a little, and then it's time for a song, and in many cases, the one chosen is hardly anything to do with the plot at all. "The winner takes it all" was the worst - no idea at all why Meryl Streep would want to sing that to Brosnan at that point. Some almost work, and some have had a few words changed to make them a little more appropriate, but all in all, I found it very jarring. A musical normally has songs written especially for a story, and move that story along. Here, the story just stops, they sing a song, and then it goes on again. I did laugh though at how they named Harry after a line in "Our Last Summer", even though they got flower power about 20 years too late.

I know every Abba song very well indeed - maybe if you know them less well you can let some of this detail wash over you? Maybe I should just lighten up a bit?

My other objection is just that this is completely a girls film. There are no guns or aliens, only a very perfunctory car chase, but plenty of bumbling males, sisters doing it for themselves, tissues and issues, and hearts on sleeves. You get the picture.

Verdict: women will like it, fans of Abba will like it if they just listen to the excellent music, and women fans of Abba will love it.

Posted by se71 at October 6, 2008 03:23 PM

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