Movie Review - 'Mamma Mia!'

Mamma Mia!

Starring Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, and Colin Firth
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
Rated PG-13

I have decided to not stop writing my review of Mamma Mia! until I run out of bad things to say about it. Pack a lunch; you're going to be here a while.

First, I should be a champ and tell you what I liked about it. OK, fair enough: Greece looks absolutely beautiful whenever this film was shot; though she hasn't needed to be impressive in her past few roles, Meryl Streep clearly still has that thing that only she has, especially when she belts out the only truly worthwhile musical number in the movie, "The Winner Takes it All;" and Amanda Seyfried (Big Love) is incredibly exuberant and happy to be here.

And now that that's out of the way...

You've been to a party or on a night out with friends and it's obvious to everyone that for whatever reason, the elements just don't mix. "Isn't this great," yells one of your friends over loud music, and you think, "No, it isn't great. It's boring. Why'd we come to this club, anyway?"

Your friend is trying to resuscitate the night with artificial feelings of fun and frivolity, and that's what's going on in Mamma Mia! Though it's staged and filmed so amateurishly that few of the individual scenes work, let alone a string of them, everyone in the cast jumps around and waves their arms and laughs. "Isn't this great," the movie asks you implicitly.

Based on the runaway stage production, which itself is based on a bunch of ABBA songs, Mamma Mia! isn't warm, isn't happy, and doesn't even make you sing along with "Take a Chance on Me," a feat heretofore thought impossible. The only laughs it gets are unintentional and at the expense of Pierce Brosnan, whose musical performance reminded me of Burt Reynolds in the woefully regrettable At Long Last Love or Lee Marvin in Paint Your Wagon. When one of your three leading characters is visibly uncomfortable nearly every minute he's onscreen, you've got a big problem.

The story goes that Sophie (Seyfried) is about to be married. Her mother (Streep) doesn't know who Sophie's father is, but since she has it narrowed to three, Sophie invites all three without telling them why. She believes she'll know her father instantly, and her life's past mysteries will be solved. It's a farcical story that, if done correctly, can be tremendously entertaining. The best farce I've seen in a while is last year's Death at a Funeral, and even though it's not a musical, that movie could show director Phyllida Lloyd a thing or two about timing, overacting, and comedy.

Mamma Mia! sludges through the first 40 minutes (I know because I looked at my watch the first time something remotely interesting happened) setting up the story and staging musical numbers that smack of disingenuousness, even for a musical, which has different rules for such things.

But it's really not hard to follow the that protocol. In modern parlance, be more like Chicago and less like The Producers. Make the musical numbers feel born out of the characters, not out of where the song goes in the sequence of things. After all, if the songs don't connect with the characters, their stories are essentially hijacked for four minutes while we watch hundreds of women sing "Dancing Queen" on a dock in Greece. I've heard "Dancing Queen," and I don't need to see it performed if it has no resemblance to what's going on in the story right then.

That's one of the reasons "The Winner Takes It All" is the film's best moment: It makes sense with where the story is and where the characters are, and it's a real showcase for Meryl Streep. Still, while she's singing her ass off, Pierce Brosnan is literally standing there with his hands in his pockets, such is the direction of Ms. Lloyd.

I love the music and I like every major player on screen: Streep is a legend, Brosnan has been much better since he left Bond behind, I have no problem with Amanda Seyfried, and Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård (her other potential fathers) are both terrific actors. So why did I hate this so much?

I lay the blame at the feet of Lloyd, who is a first-time film director but has lots of experience in the theatre. But this isn't theatre, and the principles for acting, staging, choreography, and all the rest are entirely different in film.

Want proof? Watch Mamma Mia!