by Everett Jensen

Created on: August 29, 2008

Mamma Mia
directed by Phyllida Lloyd
written by Catherine Johnson
based on the music book by Catherine Johnson
starring Amanda Seyfried, Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgard, Rachel McDowall, Ashley Lilly, Dominic Cooper, Julie Waters, Christine Baranski, Ricardo Montez

In this impossibly sunny ABBA orgy, many classics are unleashed on an unsuspecting audience to mixed results.

The story involves wee Sophie (Seyfried) who is getting married to Sky (Cooper) but yearns to know the identity of her father who was out of the picture when she was born. Sophie takes it upon herself to write the three men whose names she gleans from reading clandestinely her mother Donna's (Streep) journal record of her affairs around the time of Sophie's birth. Bill Anderson (Skarsgard), Harry Bright (Firth) and Sam Carmichael (Brosnan) make the trip to the Greek Island where the wedding is being held and are instructed by Sophie to remain out of the way in the goat shed because she hasn't dared to tell her mother the men are arriving. Donna finds them anyway and kicks them off the island. But they remain off shore on Bill's boat.

The songs in this film go a long way to prove just how easily adaptable ABBA's songs are to this format. The lyrics are woven into the narrative and effectively keep the story afloat. Otherwise there isn't much of a story to tell; without the thrust of the musical interruptions the narrative would slip haphazardly into sentimental hell. The stellar songs create an imaginative and exquisite mini-universe where every note is happily struck with the same amount of exuberance found in ABBA's music. In all, this is a lighthearted romp that doesn't take itself seriously at all and wisely lets the music take center stage.

The music numbers range from inspired ("Dancing Queen") to muddled ("Slipping Through My Fingers") yet each one inhabits a particular place within the context of the film. There is so much joy at the heart of this film and it's clear that the cast members are having a blast performing the songs. It's entirely infectious and imbued with a tremendous amount of energy and a singularity of vision. Even when the songs don't work there is always one just around the bend to pick up the pace and reestablish order.

This film is really all about the music and when it works the film zips along at a decent pace but when it's off the film drags a gimp leg. The songs are all beautifully rendered cleanly in the spirit of the indomitable ABBA

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