Sophie knows who they are, because she found her mother’s diary. So, she takes it on herself to invite all three to her wedding, writing the invites as if they came from her mother. All three, Sam, Harry and Bill, show up. Over the course of the day, they all come to realize why they’re there, and each immediately assumes he’s the father. What will happen?
What Mamma Mia! is really is a vehicle for a bunch of ABBA songs. Nothing wrong with that, right? And, it actually works quite well. The show has been a stage hit all over the world for years, and the movie is directed and produced by people who’ve been involved with the show all along, including director Phyllida Lloyd, as well as Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, the two Bs of ABBA.
In case you’re a big fan of the stage version, let’s get the complaints out of the way now. The four adult leads are all much too old for the parts they’re playing. That would be Meryl Streep as Donna and Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard as Sam, Harry and Bill respectively. Given Sophie’s (Amanda Seyfried) apparent age, Donna was plenty old enough to know how babies are made when she got pregnant, and so were all of the boys. (Sophie’s supposed to have been the result of relatively youthful indiscretion, not late 20s-early 30s romance.)
And, there’s also the matter of the singing. On stage, one tends to cast a musical with people who can sing, and sing well. For a big movie, first priority is people who look good and can act, and then comes the singing. Seyfried is very good. Streep’s not at all bad (and does a great job with “The Winner Takes It All”). Firth and Skarsgard don’t have to sing much and are passable when they do. Which brings us to Brosnan. Bless his heart; he sure does try. But, Sam has a lot of singing to do in this story, and someone apparently told Brosnan that if you’re not really sure of your singing, make sure to sing really loud and maybe that’ll help. It doesn’t.
If you can get past those concerns, Mamma Mia! is well done and great fun. There’s a reason this show has been such a success, and much of that comes across on the screen. The story is set on a Greek island, where Donna stayed to have Sophie and then run an inn. So, the scenery’s beautiful, and there’s a great Greek chorus – literally. This isn’t a deep story; what angst there is passes quickly and the emphasis is mostly on fun.
Everyone seems to be having a good time. (Well, Brosnan looks a bit pained when he’s singing, but that’s understandable.) Streep has fun with her role, as do Julie Walters and Christine Baranski as her two sidekicks from the old days. In particular, Baranski absolutely nails “Does Your Mother Know That You’re Out?,” singing it with gusto while flirting outrageously with a lovely bevy of bare-chested boys. (That song and “Dancing Queen” are two of the highlights of the movie.)
The blu-ray offers a terrific sing-along option – choose it, and you get the words to all of the songs there on screen. Just great! (For you; not necessarily for those within earshot.) And the music sounds wonderful in DTS-HD 5.1. (French and Spanish in DTS 5.1 are optional.)
Also on the blue-ray are a few deleted scenes (mostly just longer cuts of things in the movie), but also “The Name of the Game,” which didn’t make the final cut; some goofy outtakes, and a music video of “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” featuring Seyfried and Dominic Cooper, who plays her fiancé, Sky. There’s also a making-of featurette, and a focus on how “Lay All Your Love On Me” was filmed (including the bare-chested boys mentioned above). One other featurette, “Becoming a Singer,” looks at how the cast was prepared for their singing roles. It includes all sorts of people involved in the production talking about how well everyone did, juxtaposed with the actors themselves being a little less self-congratulatory. Finally, there’s a commentary option with director Lloyd. And, the blu-ray also has a U-Control option to let you see ABBA trivia as the songs come up.
One complaint, and one not limited to Mamma Mia! What has led Blu-Ray producers to assume that we can all read microscopic text? Seems like just about every film I’ve reviewed lately has onscreen menus that use either very small text, hard-to-read fonts, or both. Come on … you’ve got the space. Make it legible!