Mamma Mia!

by Parsley on Sat, 2008/07/26 - 9:34am Post to Twitter

PARSLEY'S COMMLOCK

Film Review : Mamma Mia!
Mamma Mia! was one of the first stage musicals linking together the songs of one artist (Abba in this case). It has become a franchise, with other versions appearing around Europe, and has led to a whole series of other shows of its kind (We Will Rock You etc.). Now it has taken a further leap forward with a film version of the musical.

Pierce Brosnan is renown for playing James Bond, and in Mamma Mia I suspect people will not be flattering about his singing skills. However, I would say that as part of an all-star cast linking the music of Abba into a storyline, he fulfilled his role admirably.

The two things about the music of Abba are that it is generally extremely good, and that it has now become a cultural reference point. Even in film, Abba's music has already been beautifully immortalised in the Paul Hogan-scripted 'Muriel's Wedding'.

In this film version of the musical Meryl Streep plays the Mamma who is running a fairly dilapidated holiday venue on a Greek island. She is arranging a wedding party for her daughter, who is herself keen to find out which of 3 men in her mother's diary is her father.

My brother tells me that the story behind the film is that Streep took families staying with her after 9-11 to see the stage musical. Everyone enjoyed it so much that she wrote to the show's producers to tell them she thought it would make a good film. They forwarded the letter to Benny and Bjorn of Abba, who have retained a production involvement with the musical, and eventually this film was the result.

The thing about musicals as films is that they can be extremely hard work and tiring. Evita, for instance, was perfectly worthy with good music, and Madonna gave a creditable lead performance. But by the end I was horribly tired and just wishing it would be over. Similarly Tommy seemed extremely good, with wild powerful images, and obviously great music, but I needed a lie down when it was over. In fact the only examples of such films that I found light and enjoyable, and where the music enhanced the experience, were the two Bollywood films I've been to. In that regard Mamma Mia! did extremely well for me, with enough sub-plots and comedic flourishes to hold my interest and keep me comfortable.

I was interested to see a larger than usual number of female names in the senior credits on the film. Whilst I'm loathe to draw too many conclusions from that, I would say that it had a distinctive pleasant character. This was partly due to the beautiful shots of the island scenery, which makes the film feel like you are on holiday. Overall it had that 'Four Weddings And A Funeral' feelgood vibe.

Streep herself has aged in a good way to my way of thinking. In my view she was prematurely hailed as having superstar status in the early eighties, and this led to running gags about her getting placed in roles she was logically highly unsuitable for.

I particularly remember her being cast as a Polish concentration camp survivor in Sophie's Choice. When I was working in a video shop, a lady asked me for a recommendation, and she took the film when I told her that it had just come in, that it was supposed to be good, and that it was our only copy. The next day she came into the shop and hit me, saying it was rubbish and that she had fallen asleep while watching it. She was extremely embarrassed when she ended up working in a play centre where my mother was supervising, and I had to explain the circumstances of our previous meeting.

Anyway, Streep handles herself well in this production. Julie Walters puts up a worthy comedic supporting role as a celebrity cook friend of Streep's. Brosnan should still be James Bond in my view. He's in better shape than Roger Moore was in his final contributions, and he carries off the self-assured gentleman role to a tee. He's at his least convincing in a wig allegedly showing what he looked like in the sixties.

For those of us besotted with Sweden, it is quite enjoyable that one of the 3 men that might be the father is Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard. His performance totally conveys the worldly-wise confidence, so comfortable that it could be taken for arrogance, which typifies certain Swedes.

The irony for Swedes in their thirties and forties is that many of them are extremely uncomfortable with Abba being Sweden's famous export. They don't want to say thank you for the music or even be thought of as having any association with it. Similarly many Liverpudlians do not want to be regarded as the chirpy humorous successors to The Beatles.

But the music of Abba is extremely clever and evocative. The film didn't even need to use all of the hits, and threw in a couple of songs I hadn't heard before. The cleverest thing about the musical score was how it used little flourishes of Abba music to link scenes.

Overall Review : Thumbs mildly up. The music of Abba is extremely good, and this film presents it in an entertaining way.

parsley@gardenrecords.com [www.gardenrecords.com]