A Toe-Tapping Delight

Rating: 8/10 (12 July 2008)

When my dad and I went to see Mamma Mia, the cinema was packed, almost to the same extent as when we went to see Hancock on its opening day. However, there was one crucial difference between the audiences for Hancock and Mamma Mia. Whilst the audience for Hancock left the cinema with a slight air of "oh, it was alright", the audience burst into applause at the end of Mamma Mia, including me and my dad. It was unlike any audience reaction towards a movie that I have seen for a long time, and it was undoubtedly deserved.
Mamma Mia is the most all-out fun that you could possibly have at the cinema so far this summer, and I can't really see how any film is going to top it in that department for the rest of the holiday season. It isn't preachy, it isn't overly serious and it doesn't drag. Instead, it is filled to the brim with wonderful performances, amazing scenery and, of course, utterly joyous music. It is very cheesy, and some of the dance sequences are a bit pedestrian, but the music is so brilliant that I found it too hard to criticise the film's flaws.
The plot is pretty simple. 20-year-old Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is about to marry her boyfriend Sky (Dominic Cooper). However, there is one thing that would make her wedding perfect, which is if the father that she has never met could walk her down the aisle. Upon discovering her mother's (Meryl Streep) diary, Sophie discovers that her mum was with three guys around the same time that she became pregnant. Not knowing which man is her father, Sophie decides to invite all three men to the wedding and see what happens.
The ABBA music is easily the driving force behind Mamma Mia's appeal. As soon as a song kicks off, the film shoots to a whole new level. The songs are performed with just the right amount of easy-going charm and emotion by the cast (most notably Meryl Streep, whose renditions of "Mamma Mia!" and "The Winner Takes It All" are easily the musical highlights), and are punctuated with enough decent choreography and hilarious humour to keep the energy at that marvellously high level for the whole duration of the song. To hear and see iconic numbers such as "Dancing Queen", "Mamma Mia!" and "The Winner Takes It All" being performed with such infectious energy and pizazz is just magnificent.
The cast look like they're having so much fun that it is foolish not to join in. Meryl Streep steals the show as Donna Sheridan, delivering a terrific performance full of emotion and zest whilst also showing off her surprisingly powerful vocal talents. Streep's rendition of "The Winner Takes It All" is pure perfection, and is full of beautifully conveyed emotion. Those who were sceptic about Streep's singing will be blown away. As three of Donna's previous suitors, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard all look like they're having a great time, and all three make an admirable attempt at singing, something which they're not entirely used to. Julie Walters and Christine Baranski are absolutely hilarious in their scene-stealing performances as Donna's best mates, whilst Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper are wonderfully charming as the two young lovebirds at the centre of the plot. Much of the charm of the cast is that they feel so natural in this environment. Nobody seems to be giving a forced performance. They are just having some good, old-fashioned fun, and a lot of it.
Technically, the film shines. The scenery is beautiful, truly capturing the sense of love in paradise. The dance sequences are brilliantly executed, and they feel a lot more natural than, say, the calculated musical sequences in Chicago. Finally, the direction and screenplay are fantastic. This isn't surprising, seeing as the director and writer of the film version also worked on the stage version, and are therefore more likely to have an idea of the elements which capture an audience more than most other people.
Overall, Mamma Mia is a crowd-pleasing, toe-tapping piece of passionate entertainment that we just don't get enough of nowadays. No. it isn't perfect. But still, everyone involved in the production has excelled in creating an absolutely ensnaring musical, which is sure to captivate audiences of any age. Mamma Mia is full of life, energy and emotion, and by the end of the film, you will be too.