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Mamma Mia! (2008)

Director: Phyllida Lloyd

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463 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Throughout the screening of ‘Mamma Mia!’ I kept clocking the security guard in the corner. What was he thinking, I wondered, as Pierce Brosnan belted out a power-ballad version of Abba’s ‘SOS’? For Bond purists, it must be like seeing your dad in a dress. Equally, what might this beacon of masculinity think if he saw me smiling as this featherweight and often ridiculous musical drew to a finale that’s so sunny, so saccharine, that you’d be forgiven for thinking that all involved were high on happy pills?

Presumably the guard was there to check that none of us took any snaps of Meryl Streep. There she was cavorting across the screen in dungarees with hair like straw, skipping through olive groves and singing ‘Dancing Queen’ with a Greek chorus in tow. One call to the taste police and the authorities would arrest her and withdraw all reels of this sickly sweet yet wildly – bafflingly – fun film. Once the credits – which feature the cast, dressed in pantomime ’70s gear, bashing out ‘Waterloo’ – had rolled, I asked the guard what he thought. ‘I’ve seen it four times,’ he said, with perfect timing. And you like it? Pause. ‘It has its moments.’

The story has all the symmetry and drive of a stage show. Twenty-year-old American Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is about to marry her fiancé, Sky (Dominic Cooper), in the grounds of a dilapidated hotel on a Greek island run by her tireless boho mother, Donna (Streep). Only she doesn’t know which of three of her mum’s former lovers is her dad. The solution? Invite them all.And so, unknown to Donna, businessman Sam (Brosnan), old hippy Bill (Stellan Skarsgård) and City gent Harry (Colin Firth) rock up to the sunniest of Greek islands.

They sing, they dance, they wonder who’s the father. It’s ‘Paternity: The Musical’. The story is pat, some voices are ropey, but Phyllida Lloyd succeeds in bringing this musical to the screen by indulging in not a whiff of ’70s nostalgia (until the credits), taking all the right things seriously – design, locations, casting, choreography – and rejecting elements that would have made it less forgivable: gloss, cynicism and irony.

Despite a flow of beach bods, there’s no worship of superficial beauty beyond the casting of the young leads, Seyfried and Cooper (and neither is a vapid youngster of ‘The OC’ sort). Lloyd plays it straight as a bat and finds a working balance between the fantasy of the musical numbers, the fairytale story and the down-to-earth presentation of the characters. The one concession she makes to Hollywood is that more of the leads are American than in the stage version – but she more than compensates by casting Julie Walters in a major role.

Just watch her sing and dance to ‘Take a Chance on Me’. There’s nothing slick about that. The men are a rum, awkward bunch. Skarsgård (age 57) looks like he’s having far too good a time being rubbed by young women during one number; Colin Firth doesn’t push the boat out and plays a bumbling Englishman; and, however hard he tries, Brosnan doesn’t remind you of Brando in ‘Streetcar…’ even when yelling ‘Donna!’ at Streep.

‘Mamma Mia!’ is not a man’s film. I mean this in the way that films about football hooligans who get loaded and smash the skulls of other hooligans are not women’s films. But I suspect that a fair few men (and not a few women) will find that this film appeals to an urge for wholesome trash and confounds their expectations. Against the odds, ‘Mamma Mia!’ is a summer movie that’s as camp as Christmas and as enjoyable as a pantomime. I suspect Streep will win an Oscar nomination; at 59, and still doing the splits, she’s game enough to deserve one.

Author: Dave Calhoun

Time Out London Issue 1977, July 10 -16, 2008

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User reviews of this film

b,jhfjytfmkhgk, said...

Posted on Aug 04 2011 20:37 I LOVE THIS FILM :)

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joe said...

Posted on Jun 27 2011 12:56 this film is rubbish

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joe said...

Posted on Jun 27 2011 12:56 this film is rubbish

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joe said...

Posted on Jun 27 2011 12:56 this film is rubbish

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grace d said...

Posted on May 26 2011 15:00 heey heey i love you!

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graciee! said...

Posted on May 26 2011 14:58 i hate his film!

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haha.... said...

Posted on May 26 2011 14:56 amazing:)

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Mike said...

Posted on Sep 24 2010 08:47 Just tell it like it is: This film is complete pants. The only reason I suspect so many "names" were in it was because of the fees they got - I read Meryl Streep got $7m - and probably some royalties too. I'm happy to be in something dreadful for $7m for a few weeks work. For those who haven't seen it - this film's toe-curlingly dreadful.

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film crit said...

Posted on Apr 07 2010 12:08 why oh why am i on this website again? its pump

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beth said...

Posted on Mar 01 2010 14:53 PANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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I said...

Posted on Mar 01 2010 14:53 Do u like to eat? I like chicken. do you like chicken? CHICKEN

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frosty the snowman said...

Posted on Mar 01 2010 14:51 its a bit nippy

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ross howard said...

Posted on Mar 01 2010 14:49 mmmmmm chicken

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no one said...

Posted on Mar 01 2010 14:38 arent plums wonderfull?

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bob marly said...

Posted on Mar 01 2010 14:38 it was sooooooooooooooo boring my music is better

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