The few critics who
admit to liking Mamma Mia! the movie—despite their better judgment-- usually try to
protect their snark cred. You know the slap-stroke routine: “Clever and well done - in a cringey,
cheesey, bizarre way. Now, where did I put my HRT?” (HRT, for those of you who
don’t know, is hormone replacement therapy, the bane or blessing of middle aged
women.)
Don’t let snobbery
keep you away, especially if you’re someone who’s old enough to have a little
bit of dancing queen inside you. Or if you’re a man who’s old enough to have
had a Stevie Nicks fantasy or two back in the day (okay: or one with a bit of the
dancing queen himself).
This movie lifted my
spirits, which is the point of most musicals. And I don’t like Abba or
musicals. As one Australian critic who "got" Mamma said, “It’s Beach Blanket
Bingo meets Zorba The Greek, music by Ulvaeus and Andersson. Nothing more.” In
other words, it’s a MUSICAL. It’s not supposed to be Henrik Ibsen’s Dollhouse,
and for that we can rejoice.
I’ll go further.
There were times the film connected with the audience in a deep way. There were
tears and laughter and maybe even a dollop of that classical measure of drama:
catharsis. For that, the music is largely responsible.
One critic who "gets" it is Melanie Reid
of the UK's Times Online. Of Abba’s music, so mocked by people like me who prefer
Tom Waits, Reid pointed out “But the music endured, and its rhythms and
combination of sad lyrics and uplifting tunes - what the lyricist Tim Rice
calls true genius - has proved us all wrong. This is not dumbing down. This is
remembering that the true purpose of art should be to entertain, not to prop up
some kind of exclusive club. One is not stupid or compromised if one is
uplifted by popular music or drama; nor should one be cowardly in admitting it."
I “got” Abba for the first time
hearing the divine Meryl Streep (Donna, the woman who loved and lost--or did she?) singing
The Winner Takes It All.
This number alone is
worth the price of the movie. It’s campy and at the same time
deeply true. And Streep and her most excellent posse (Christine Baranski and
Julie Walters) are the rest of us out here, fortyish and fiftyish and more--and still
alive, loving, and dancing, if only in our hearts. Or as15-year-old Houston teen critic
Leigh Jensen, who also “got” it, said: “They were sassy and funny in a way only
middle-aged women can be.”
While the old gals--all the old gals on the island--carry the story, ingénue Amanda Seyfried is luminous and adorable, and so are
the other young folks.
Over the top: yes. It's a MUSICAL. The story doesn’t
really hold. Who cares: it’s a MUSICAL. The accents are improbable: who cares: it’s a MUSICAL. The continuity is off: Donna’s summer of love child
would be 40, not 20. Who cares: it’s a MUSICAL. This is Brigadoon territory, people.
Some would like more
music. I’d like more of the delicious men, Donna’s old suitors (one of whom is
her daughter’s father), played by Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan
Skarsgard. And no, Brosnan can’t sing, but you know: WHO CARES?
I think the audience
at the Majestic Saturday night liked the movie, but this is Wisconsin, after
all. We’re private and reserved. I’m with Leigh: “The rest of the
moviegoers seemed pretty unexcited. They did not dance once, which shocked and
dismayed me. If you're dorky enough to stay up half the night waiting for the
release of Mamma Mia! chances are you're not too cool to dance in
the aisles. "
I'll willingly
suspend disbelief over all of it to be reminded to take some chances.
And any
dancing queens willing to take to the aisles with me next time, let me know!
