The story of a bride-to-be trying to find her real father told using hit songs by the popular '70s group ABBA.
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Of the smash stage hit, "Mamma Mia!" director Phyllida Lloyd once quipped: "It was always a movie. It's set on location on a magical island. In many ways, it was bursting to get off the stage and into the cinema. It has just leapt out."Lloyd was on the mark when she made the statement. Unfortunately, she has stumbled far off that mark in the much-anticipated film version of the ABBA musical. What could have been a breathtaking, emotionally riveting big-screen adventure often turns into a clunky ride that stumbles from scene to scene hoping to find its beating heart. In the end, it's not the oddly choreographed, curiously edited and disjointed execution that send this ABBA homage traveling south; it's a lack of connection Lloyd and screenwriter Catherine Johnson make with their movie audience. Unlike last year's Hairspray, which so aptly grabbed its viewers on the inside--and allowed us to celebrate the giddiness of love and unity--Mamma Mia! emotes when it should evoke. Several things do keep this venture afloat. One of them is Meryl Streep. It may be a cliché to say at this point, but the Oscar-winner can do no wrong. (And when all things seem to be slipping through her fingers in Mamma Mia!, you realize that is exactly the case.) Beyond Streep, one must make a case for the music here, which comes from the overly frothy, always catchy ABBA queue. When all is sung and done, you can't help but walk away from Mamma Mia! liking it. (Let's face it, when it comes to ABBA, can we really take anything that seriously?) The story remains true to the stage hit, which, since it debuted in London a decade ago, went on to become a Broadway showstopper. Actually, the story originated in the '80s when producer Judy Craymer began working with ABBA alums Benny Andersson and Bjørn Ulvaeus on "Chess." (Craymer comes back to produce here.) Thanks to a successful touring show, more than 30 million people have now experienced the production's curious spell, which (loosely) wraps a modern-day love story set in Greece around a string of cheery, often dreamy ABBA hit songs like "Honey, Honey," "Dancing Queen," "Voules-Vous," "S.O.S.," "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme" and, of course, "Mamma Mia!" Streep assumes the lead role of Donna, the independent, single mother who owns a small hotel on an idyllic Greek island, but most of the drama revolves around Donna's daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried). Sophie is about to get married and in her quest to find out who her father really is, she invites three men from her mother's past to the wedding (Pierce Bronson, Stellan Skarsgärd and Colin Firth, a true "Super Trouper" in this outing). Unfortunately, Sophie doesn't tell Donna about this, but by the time Donna discovers what's happened, she can lean on visiting gal pals Rosie (Julie Walters) and multi-divorcee Tanya (Christine Baranski). The long-time friends once crooned in a band dubbed Donna and the Dynamos. This is a stellar cast. Baranski and Walters--always a gem--shine. Firth is marvelous, underplaying his role as a befuddled ex-love to winning ends. As for Bronson--he tanks and as such is giving the most appropriate ABBA song to sing in this enterprise: "S.O.S." (You know something has gone horribly wrong when a former James Bond croons, and the audience can only laugh.) As for the remainder of the supporting cast, Sophie's two girlfriends nearly drop out of sight mid-way through the film. The only supporting player that stands out is Dominic Cooper as Sophie's fiancé. You get the sense there's a "there" there. That's the problem with Mamma Mia! With the exception of Streep, you don't believe in it. Not the way you should. (Who can forget how off things felt in Grease 2? At times, it feels the same way here.) Visually sumptuous, Lloyd does manage to deliver the most romantic, sensuous aspects of a Greek isle. The more rewarding musical numbers--"Dancing Queen," "Voules-Vous" and a heartwrenching "The Winner Takes it All"--make use of the amorous settings and are downright captivating. Other pieces, ones that could have been triumphant, fall flat, particularly "Does Your Mother Know?" and, sadly, "Mamma Mia!" It's fine to have your actors roam from room to room, singing so dramatically on stage, but it only comes across as claustrophobic on film when it's done more than one or two times. One can see how Lloyd, who makes her debut as film director here, may have been overwhelmed by staging these outings. They never leap from their settings as they did when they were performed for the theater. Part of that may have to do with editing. Still, Lloyd does not seem to know how to best make use of a close-up or even deliver a more expansive, effecting shot of her ensemble's work. Some numbers feel too tight when they should be set loose. Others are given too much space when they should be reigned in. And while the concept of including a communal European verve in some musical numbers is divine, we're not connected enough to the surrounding players or the community to care too much about them or the songs they are singing. Thank you for the music? Sure. But, next time, to use ABBA vernacular, "don't go wasting my emotion." |
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
There is a scene in the wildly popular musical movie, Mamma Mia, where Merle Streep as Donna (a former rock star from the 1970s) suddenly REMEMBERS her younger, wilder days as a female rock star and leader of an all-girl band from the 1970s (thanks to the loving ministrations of her two old friends who remind her, hilariously, that "growing up" may indeed be a false path). First jumping on the bed, then flying through space (like a Tibetan Buddhist Dakini), she triumphantly leads a serpentine line of women out of the hotel, through the town, and down to the ocean in the classic manner of the famous Maenads ("mad women" or "wild women") of ancient Greece. The Greek women (just as they did in classical times) leave off their jobs, their burdens, their husbands and fathers, their kitchens and aprons, as they are joyously, ineluctably drawn to join the collective of irrepressible dancing women in their spontaneous and glorious state of wild abandon and ecstasy. (All this takes place to the fabulous Abba tune of "Dancing Queen," as the local men, incidentally, cheer them on.)It is this Dionysian state of wild abandon and spontaneous joy that I believe we must somehow reawaken in order to beat the McCain-Palin ticket, which is based on the repressive and traditional values that we already once overthrew during the genuine revolution of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Sisters, don't you remember? We went wild. Like the ancient Greek Maenads (or the Indian Yoginis and Tibetan Dakinis, for that matter), we cut loose. We left our husbands, threw off our repressive jobs, our bogus traditional values and conditioned knee-jerk responses. We left the churches and synagogues in droves, we left behind the corporate tracking system and the academic elitism that supported it. We opted out in favor of freedom, liberation, and authenticity. It was a magical, thrilling, and transformative revolution in which, collectively, we took back the night, owned our own bodies, and awakened to our unique human potential. Then came the backlash. Reagan. Nixon. Pornography. Violence against women. And now we have Sarah Palin as a pseudo-feminist poser who is supposed to frighten us into submission, because she is a woman, and into NOT voting for the democratic ticket in this urgent bipolar election. This apparent dilemma is so absurd that I can only imagine laughing a great HA of liberation, in the tradition of the Tibetan Black Dakini (whose name, Throma, translates as "angry woman") and hitting the streets--in groups of wildly dancing women. Laughing, singing, and joyously taking back our revolution. We have got to unify against these posers (and the media who blindly support them) and beat them back into their little dark corner. Sarah Palin is nothing more than a "tool in the hands of the boys," as Robin Morgan would have said in the 1970s, or a "fembot" in the language of philosopher Mary Daly in the 1980s. To all the women (and a couple of men) who were upset and responded to my email message by telling me I was careless, reminding me how carefully we need to "fact check," and how important it is for progressives to stay on point, I say--what good has it done the progressive movement to be right? To be correct? To behave itself? To articulate the issues? Our efforts to deal with issues and be serious, undeceitful, and nonconflictual--where has it gotten us? I'm just not convinced it is the only correct path at this moment in time. The Republicans avoid issues and go for symbols and emotional buzz words--and the public, I'm sorry to say, responds positively. What would happen if we cut loose and became ourselves? What if we took a stance that looked more like the Daly show (Comedy Central), what if we were to laugh out loud at the absurdities and mock the players, rocking out--instead of trying to stay all buttoned up and proper? I think we've sold out our "shakti" (natural female power) in our efforts to tow the line. The revolutionary movements of the 1960s and 1970s weren't based on being square--they emerged out of a volcanic explosion of spontaneous life-force energy and creative self-expression. There are more single mothers and gay people now than every before (at least out of the closet). The feminist movement was based on sexual liberation and self-affirmation, NOT as Palin would have it, abstinence-only birth control, pregnant teen-agers, and enslavement to the narrow and un-holy values of the Christian Right. I just can't see progressives going on in the normal polite way, which will surely cost us the election. Change or die, that's the call. Let's come together, make alliances, practice solidarity. Vote for life. Organize for change. Break free. Do something radical or unexpected. Fight for change! |
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