Review: Mamma Mia Is The Feel-Weird Movie Of The Milennium
- Jul 25, 2018
- 2 min read
When ABBA was wondering how they could turn their commercial success into further financial success, some bozo suggested they should make a musical out of their songs. And then another bozo suggested that a movie should be made out of that musical. So we got Mamma Mia! The Movie, a star-studded karaoke night about the daughter of a self-proclaimed "slut" who's using her marriage to find out who her real dad is. It was praised not for its writing, but as a feel-good movie. But I beg to differ. I'm labelling it my feel-weird movie of the milennium.
Sophie Sheridan (Amanda Seyfried) lives on a beautiful Greek island at her mother Donna's (Meryl Streep) villa. In the lead-up to her wedding to Sky (Dominic Cooper), she invites her three dads - Bill (Stellan Skarsgård), Sam (Pierce Brosnan), and Harry (Colin Firth) - without telling her mother. This throws Donna into a state of emotional turmoil, and because the two women are completely incapable of communicating about their issues until the day of Sophie's wedding, they both remain in emotional turmoil until the end of the movie.
In the meantime, Donna's old friend Tanya (Christine Baranski) is trying to talk herself out of sleeping with a black kid, her other friend Rosie (Julie Walters) is trying to talk Bill into sleeping with her, Sky is being treated to some emotional whiplash from Sophie, and the priest is probably considering a career change after the wedding.
I watched Mamma Mia! when I was a kid, and was amused by the ABBA songs and gorgeous setting. I watched it again more recently, and was amused by the ABBA songs and gorgeous setting. On my latest rewatch, which came after seeing the sequel in cinemas, I decided to pay closer attention to the plot, particularly plot points pertinent to the sequel. And I was amused by the ABBA songs and the gorgeous setting. There's really not much else to like.
I talked about this as my feel-weird movie - which maybe doesn't cover my range of emotions while watching this intently. A strangely intense sequence in the middle of the film gave me some slight anxiety, the film's apathy towards Sky's feelings throughout made me deeply uncomfortable, and can I just mention that intense scene in the middle again? It's extremely unsettling, especially when the women tie up Sophie's dads as part of HER hen's party, seemingly against Colin Firth's will. It has elements of a feel-good movie - and by that, I mean characters constantly burst into song - but there are so many bad singers that I was usually too distracted to enjoy the music. Firth, Brosnan, and Cooper: go back to action movies and never sing again, please.
One thing I should remind readers, however: it's a jukebox musical with an amazing cast, and have I mentioned? It's based on ABBA songs. There's a very strictly defined audience for this movie, of ABBA fans, musical afficionados, and people who don't mind romcoms. My recommendation is simple: if you fit within their audience, you'll probably enjoy the movie for what it is, and not much more. If you don't, you will most certainly not.
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