Mamma Mia!

I didn't use to like this movie, but as I got older I started to love the movie more. It's definitely a cheesy movie and far from perfect, but it's a fun watch with catchy songs (duh, it's ABBA). It's not too long nor too short, so it's a perfect movie to watch when you're feeling down or to watch with friends on a movie-night.

That kind of film who is so easy to define as superficial. Before you see it. Because it is only ... charming. Surprising charming. For musical scenes. For the feel of summer holliday. For impressive cast and beautiful performances. For locations. And, off course, for...ABBA. The best point - the feeling to see an old fashion comedy. And that is the serious motif. For see it. Time by time.

This movie is two hours of music and happiness. This movie is an easy 11/10 method of being happy and one of my all time favourites. There is no ingenious plot or thought provoking question, and that's fine. Just sing along and enjoy.

Having read Anthony Lane's review of Mamma Mia for the New Yorker, I approached this film with appropriately low expectations. I knew everyone was going to have orange skin. I knew the actors would not be doing very graceful or interesting things while they sang. I knew the film was just a vehicle for ABBA songs, which meant that it was going to have a thin, contrived plot--and that was fine with me. Like virtually every other viewer who has chipped in to the financial success of this film and the Broadway musical it was based on, I was only watching it for the ABBA anyway. It would be nostalgic, it would be peppy, it would be fun. I'd get to enjoy the pleasure of anticipation--"Oh, I know what song is coming here!"--or, alternatively, the laughter of surprised recognition when the actors launched into a song I hadn't seen coming.

In the end, I didn't even get that. It was clear within five minutes that this film was going to be excruciatingly overacted. The loud cackling laughter, the slapstick, the spastic dancing, the needless acrobatics (hanging and falling off of roofs). Certain leading actors' inability to sing, which made it hard to enjoy the music. I give the creators credit for incorporating songs into the storyline in, let's say moderately clever ways. But watching how poorly acted and choreographed this movie was, I thought: Is the problem that the people making this film are too embarrassed by the silliness of the premise to take it seriously enough to make it good? You can know that the premise of your film is silly--you can signal to the audience that you know it's silly--but you can still love it enough and pour enough care into it to create a film that's impressively executed and delightful to watch, even heartwarming. Baz Luhrmann has demonstrated that brilliantly with Strictly Ballroom and Moulin Rouge. Perhaps Luhrmann could have made this film enjoyable. As is, I'd have gotten more enjoyment from just putting on my headphones and popping ABBA Gold into my CD player.

The critical and audience reactions to this film seemed to suggest that it was very much a Marmite of a film, with people either loving it or hating it. By the time I thought I should check it out, the "biggest film of the year" had become a sing-a-long classic and I decided to wait for the DVD. Watching it myself I can totally understand why this reaction was forthcoming and it is not really down to the film so much as it is the viewers. See, those that hate it will do so for the same reasons as those that love it. Mamma Mia is a film version of a stage-show but it is not an adaptation in that it has been made into a film so much as it is a stage musical made into a film. What I mean by this clunky sentence is that all the standards of the cheesy musical have been left in – from "big" action, colour and simple dumb cheer.

For me personally this doesn't really appeal and nor did I particularly enjoy the film as it did feel all forced smiles and joys, scenes shoe-horned to fit the lyrics and fake fun in the actors and extras. By the end I had pretty much had as much camp fun as I could really stand and was glad it was done. Now others have taken that to mean that the film is rubbish, but it isn't – it just didn't work for you either. However for what it does Mamma Mia is actually very good because it knows who it is aiming for and what it has to do. Yes this means that it is daft and cheesy but that sort of "big" cheerfulness is what the target audience want – they want to feel elated and lifted even if it isn't real in any form. In that regard the film delivers as it is built on beautiful colours in the sets and costumes and a cast that put their egos to one side and throw themselves into it.

This last part is important because to my disinterested eye all the star actors came off looking daft. Streep is certainly not someone I expected to be doing this and to her credit she throws herself into it, showing a camp overacting side I didn't know she had. Likewise Walters, Baranski, Firth, Brosnan and Skarsgård all do much the same – albeit to varying degrees of success. If you're into it then the "big" performances are all part of the fun but if, like me, you're not, then it will be endlessly embarrassing and it will be hard to shake the feeling that I was watching award-winning actors making themselves look and sound like muppets. Of course that is why they are "good" in the context of what the film is trying to be and yet at the same time "bad" if you are not in the swing of the film.

What we are left with then is a film that we have seen plays really well to those that get it but leaves everyone else wondering why on earth people like Streep and Walters would make such nonsense. I personally disliked it but that does not make it a "bad" film, only a bad one from my point of view. For what it sets out to do though, it is a winning achievement – full of cheerful cheese and lots of colour. In fact, it is such a targeted film that you will already know whether you will love it or hate it long before you press play.