Utter Camp Brilliance

Rating: 10/10 (14 July 2008)

I've always been a fan of musical Theatre. You can't beat the atmosphere of a crowd fired up by excitement, laughing, crying, clapping, cheering and of course singing along to the numbers. The players on stage bring a 3D reality to the show that you can't get at the cinema - though the lack of ability to do close ups means that you do lose some of the emotion in the individual performances.
I never thought I would ever see a film at the cinema that successfully merges the live atmosphere of Theatre with the in your face close up acting that you can get on screen. But this is what you get when you go and see Mamma Mia the Movie. People are laughing out loud, crying, cheering, clapping and as the film progresses, dancing in the aisles. On top of that are emotional, perhaps Oscar winning performances by the likes of Meryl Streep and Julie Walters.
You may have read some poor reviews of Mamma Mia. Ignore them! The negative ones were probably written by men who just don't get it. Or by miserable people denying themselves the chance to spend two hours being cheered up, warmed up and entertained and made to laugh out loud. In the UK we have prices rocketing through the roof, we have stagnant pay rises, rain when it should be sunny and newspapers that feed us a constant parade of knifings, shootings and killings. This film is a panacea for the modern world. A very cheesy, camp fantasy that really is as feel good as it can get.
The setting is a beautiful sunny Greek island - with breathtaking landscapes of turquoise seas, white sandy beaches and green hillsides. The cast have been assembled from the best Hollywood has to offer. Amanda Seyfried looks beautiful as the young girl about to marry and wanting to know which of her mother, Donna's three former lovers is actually her father. Will she find out and will he give her away? Colin Firth, reprising his bumbling Englishman role from Love Actually and Bridget Jones Diary - and Pierce Brosnan about as far away as it is possible to be from Bond James Bond - come across really well because they are in on the joke. You can tell they are having fun and although their singing is not spectacular it is no where near as bad as some of the critics will have you believe.
Julie Walters is priceless as the mad as a hatter Rosie and gets the best lines. Her friend Tanya has the best song and dance scene with "Does Your Mother Know" - on the beach trying to put off the advances of a barman young enough to be her son - or maybe even her grand son. Given their antics you could be forgiven for saying the film is targeted at middle aged women - that was certainly the majority of the audience in the cinema I went to - but every generation is represented - this is really a film about growing up and how love can be blind when you are young and when you are old.
Meryl Streep is astonishing as Donna. She can sing and she acts her socks off. "Slipping through my fingers", never my favourite Abba song - becomes a tear jerker when her acting and singing combine - and "The Winner Takes it all" proves just who the winner should be.
Whether you like Abba or not , the updated versions of the songs, despite the extremely unsubtle ways in which they are shoehorned into the plot (you can always spot those who have not seen Mamma Mia before - they are the ones who groan when they realise how the song has been introduced), sound fresh and vibrant and should attract a whole new generation of fans.
And at the end - once the main action has finished - the title sequence arrives like an encore - encouraging the audience to get on their feet and dance till the end. And when Streep asks the audience if they want more - and everyone cries "Yes!!!" - even though she isn't really there - you know that everyone has been swept away by the cheesy camp brilliance of this film. Thank you for the music!