DIRECTED BY: PHYLLIDA LLOYD
STARRING: MERYL STREEP, PIERCE BROSNAN, STELLAN SKARSGÅRD
THE modern musical takes another shotgun blast to the head with Mamma Mia!, a hideous adaptation of the wildly successful Abba
-inspired stage show about a bride-to-be on a Greek island trying to work out which of three men knocked up her "reckless little slut" mother 20 years earlier.
The original stage musical has been seen by about 30 million people worldwide since it first opened in 1999 and the so producers of this cheap-looking, ear-assaulting cinematic travesty – among them Tom Hanks – will be raking in the money, money, money (sorry) if even a fraction of that audience turns out to see it. It will, too, because brand recognition counts for more than quality these days, and Hollywood knows it. Ever since Chicago romped home with all those Oscars, the studios have understood one basic rule when it comes to synergising movies and hit musicals: as long as the songs remain the same and the basic "experience" is replicated, they can get away with serving up any old slop and audiences will trundle along.
The best you can say about Mamma Mia! is that it's a credit crunch-friendly way for hen parties across the land to experience this jukebox musical for a fraction of the price of a West End ticket. As a film its attitude to story, performance and even basic continuity is atrocious. As a musical it's even worse: there's no lightness of touch, no grace to the choreography and no structure to the comedy. Nor is it particularly concerned with using the form to showcase the most fundamental pleasures to be found in all the best musicals (Singin' in the Rain, The Wizard of Oz, Cabaret): star performers delivering their best routines.
That, of course, is partly because Mamma Mia! has no star performers. Yes, yes, it has a cast of "names" – it even boasts genuine acting royalty among its principal players in the shape of Meryl Streep. But simply employing Hollywood actors who can sing a bit is different from having performers who can genuinely dazzle and light up the screen through song and dance. There's no denying Streep is a brilliant actress, for instance, but none of the things that make her great is necessary for this film and as a musical star she's fairly forgettable.
Unfortunately she's also the best thing about Mamma Mia! Everyone else's vocal performances range from the passably accomplished (Amanda Seyfried, playing Streep's daughter, Sophie), to the endearingly game (Colin Firth, Julie Walters, Stellan Skarsgård), to the take-them-outside-and-beat-them-with-a-baseball-bat bad (Pierce Brosnan). Consequently, despite the cast's cinematic credentials, such mediocre musical skills ensure the finished film has the feel of a karaoke knees-up organised by holiday reps doing a package tour of the Greek islands. It hardly needs to be said that it's bloody torture to sit through.
Unless, of course, you are one of that scary number of people that considers Abba to be either the epitome of pop perfection or the ultimate excuse for downing cheap cocktails, singing out of tune and dancing like a loon at weddings, office parties and retro discos. In which case, there's probably no talking to you, especially since Mamma Mia! comes on like a piece of televangelism, serving up a relentless avalanche of Abba anthems and hysterically pitched performances that will more than likely whip true believers into such paroxysms of gooey-eyed giggliness they won't see how utterly insane it all looks to anyone who doesn't think Dancing Queen is the best song ever written.
It's not helped by the complete absence of cinematic flair the show's stage director, Phyllida Lloyd, brings to proceedings. Her ill-judged compositions and boring use of the film's Greek locations further expose the film's song-linking story for the crock of hooey it really is.
That story revolves around hard-working island hotel proprietor Donna (Streep) whose about-to-be-married daughter Sophie (Seyfried) is so desperate to find her father she reads her mother's diary and invites the three men she thinks are the best possible candidates to her wedding. Much shrieking duly follows as the horrified Donna's former lovers (played by Brosnan, Firth and Skarsgård) unexpectedly arrive en masse in her hotel on the eve of the wedding, setting the scene for a predictable farce-like comedy as the guys gradually realise why they've been lured to the island and Donna, her ageing gal pals (Walters and Christine Baranski) and Sophie face up to the fact they don't know which one is really the father.
Naturally, each plot point serves up an overly literal link for another Abba hit, but fatally, this clunky narrative never once makes a case for why Abba's songs are so popular.
A modern musical, particularly one like this which uses established pop hits, should be far more alive to the way these well-known songs can infect our daily lives and lift us out of the drudgery. It should weave music seamlessly into the fabric of the story; not make said story seem like an inconvenient afterthought.
Mamma Mia! exists purely because the songs exist and someone wanted to generate some more cash from them. The last thing it leaves you feeling is thankful for the music.
The full article contains 904 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
