Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Writer: Catherine Johnson (screenplay & musical book)
Back in 2008, I loved this film, my parents got me the DVD for Christmas and all I did for weeks after that was sing. Looking at it now, I'm not its biggest fan. It raises way too many questions and doesn't really answer them, the songs barely even convey what they're trying to get across, in a lot of places the choreography looks like it was done by a middle-aged housewife who's only dance move includes the I'm listening to Take That while doing the dishes. Fucking painful.
First of all, I want to talk about how convenient the plot is to this thing. So Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) finds an old diary of her mothers from the year she was pregnant with her, fair enough. She then reads to her friends from the diary and reveals she has three potential fathers, again, fair enough. She then somehow manages to track them down, it could happen if she read out the surnames of these men but...she didn't. Maybe her mother had written the names but she didn't read them but why would her mother write their surnames in her diary? Isn't it also a little convenient that one of her ex's is a banker and another is an architect? Both of which are high enough up in their jobs to be tracked via the internet? And that the final ex turns out to be a popular writer, It also turns out that she managed to get their home addresses, fair enough for the writer and maybe the architect but definitely not the banker. I just don't believe it. Did all these guys have MySpace pages where they blasted all their information? How did she find these guys surnames if they weren't written in the diary anyway? She couldn't ask her mum, she'd get suspicious, couldn't ask her mums friends, they'd get a little suspicious and tell her mother and she couldn't ask her grandmother because she told Donna (Meryl Streep) to not come home when she got pregnant so I'm assuming they're not in contact plus the fact we're given indication hat Donna's mother is dead. How did this girl do it?
How is this movie set in Grece yet features an American girl who is marrying an English ma, she has an English and Scottish best friend. Her mother is also American with an American best friend and an English best friend who's ex's are English and American? I dunno, this just bothered me, I'm all for talented actors taking on role's but...how did they all even meet? I'm all for show don't tell but...tell us something, please.
The singing is terrible. I heard Meryl Streep said that all she had to do was just sing and was told she sounded fine but when she heard herself in the film she was shocked and got lessons. My question is...how did Christine Baranski, a trained singer, hear her and think "ya, that's good". Doesn't that say something about who she is as a person? I don't know but if I was trained as a singer and was as good as her, I'd probably offer help. Or maybe she did and Streep rejected it. Either way, Streep and a couple others should have had help, I can't sing and I know nothing about it but even I could tell something was off.
That whole entire number "Lay all your love on me" is almost an example of what an unhealthy relationship is. Quote "And I'm possessive it isn't nice, you've heard me saying that smoking was my only vice" ... "Don't go sharing your devotion, lay all your love on me." I'm not an expert but...possessiveness isn't good, regardless of whether you admit it or not. That vice thing sounds a little aggressive, almost as if he's blaming her for only having smoking left, and "Don't go sharing your devotion"? Why not? Obviously, they won't devote themselves to another person but what about their passions? Their families?
In fact where the hell is Sky's (Dominic Cooper) family? Why don't they ever get mentioned? He barely even gets a backstory, why does Sophie love him? What drew her to him? Aside from his looks what is there about his personality other than he doesn't want a big white wedding and that he wants to travel? Character development is important. Also, side note, I was looking up Dominic Coopers surname on IMDb because I kept thinking it was Dominic Wood but I knew that wasn't right. Anyway, I looked it up under the Mamma Mia cast and crew list and you wanna know where he came up on the list? Below Gregoris, who is Gregoris? The guy who comes below Arina, and who is Arina? The woman who comes below Stavros. Who is Stavros? That guy on the boat toward the start of the movie who asked for Rosie's (Julie Walters) autograph. That's where this guy's character gets listed on IMDb, I mean you'd think he'd be listed with higher importance considering he's marrying the main character but whatever.
Quote: "Alone here on your own." Just a terribly written line. Did nobody look back on that and think...let's think about that for a second, does it sound stupid? That's it, stupid line. Next.
All of the potential fathers, Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Bill (Stellan Skarsgård) and Harry (Colin Firth) somehow work out they're her father but then none of them seem to think "hey, I'm here because I'm her father...what about these other guys?" Especially Sam, he came back and found out that Donna went off with another man so he should have at least thought "maybe Donna was a slut and these two could possibly be her father too...huh." Stupid.
Speaking of stupid, that scene in the church near the end. The wedding is about to start and Donna is the first to interrupt, then it's Sophie, then it's Sam and then they let the wedding start again. Only this time, Sophie interrupts to then cancel the wedding which it turns out that everybody is happy about. 1) If I were a guest at that wedding, I'd be pretty pissed that I walked up that big fucking hill to watch someone cancel their wedding. 2) If I were that child guest I'd be even more pissed. 3) If I were her mother, I'd be extra pissed that I paid for this whole big white wedding, that's wasted money right there. 4) Why the hell was Sky even that happy the wedding was called off? Not a good sign for your relationship there. Then Sam decides that the woman he loves has been avoiding him for three days and that when he last saw her she told him she wanted nothing to with him, that this would be the absolute perfect time to propose to her with Quote: "why waste a good wedding?" How romantic. And of course she accepts and they get married which I'm calling bullshit on because I doubt any priest from any church would accept this.
And finally, this thing holds you hostage like every other musical ever. It's trying to cram in as much Abba as it can and I'm just not a fan, you don't need to hold us hostage to applaud a movie. In the theatre I kind of get it because...applause is due in there, the actors work hard and it's nice to show your approval of what you've just seen. But in a film? Not necessary.
There is some good in this though, I mean, I love Julie Walters and Christine Baranski. Both are top actors and I love pretty much everything I've seen them in. Colin Firth is also a pretty enjoyable watch. Dominic Wood is pretty nice to look at even though his performance isn't that wonderful. The music and some of the choreography is pretty good. I mean that's pretty rare but when it's good it's good and should be given credit.
I guess that's it, looking back on the film it's not as good as I remember it with all the holes and stuff but I'm probably still gonna watch it as a guilty pleasure. That's it for tonight...bye bye.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then please go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.
Back in 2008, I loved this film, my parents got me the DVD for Christmas and all I did for weeks after that was sing. Looking at it now, I'm not its biggest fan. It raises way too many questions and doesn't really answer them, the songs barely even convey what they're trying to get across, in a lot of places the choreography looks like it was done by a middle-aged housewife who's only dance move includes the I'm listening to Take That while doing the dishes. Fucking painful.
First of all, I want to talk about how convenient the plot is to this thing. So Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) finds an old diary of her mothers from the year she was pregnant with her, fair enough. She then reads to her friends from the diary and reveals she has three potential fathers, again, fair enough. She then somehow manages to track them down, it could happen if she read out the surnames of these men but...she didn't. Maybe her mother had written the names but she didn't read them but why would her mother write their surnames in her diary? Isn't it also a little convenient that one of her ex's is a banker and another is an architect? Both of which are high enough up in their jobs to be tracked via the internet? And that the final ex turns out to be a popular writer, It also turns out that she managed to get their home addresses, fair enough for the writer and maybe the architect but definitely not the banker. I just don't believe it. Did all these guys have MySpace pages where they blasted all their information? How did she find these guys surnames if they weren't written in the diary anyway? She couldn't ask her mum, she'd get suspicious, couldn't ask her mums friends, they'd get a little suspicious and tell her mother and she couldn't ask her grandmother because she told Donna (Meryl Streep) to not come home when she got pregnant so I'm assuming they're not in contact plus the fact we're given indication hat Donna's mother is dead. How did this girl do it?
How is this movie set in Grece yet features an American girl who is marrying an English ma, she has an English and Scottish best friend. Her mother is also American with an American best friend and an English best friend who's ex's are English and American? I dunno, this just bothered me, I'm all for talented actors taking on role's but...how did they all even meet? I'm all for show don't tell but...tell us something, please.
The singing is terrible. I heard Meryl Streep said that all she had to do was just sing and was told she sounded fine but when she heard herself in the film she was shocked and got lessons. My question is...how did Christine Baranski, a trained singer, hear her and think "ya, that's good". Doesn't that say something about who she is as a person? I don't know but if I was trained as a singer and was as good as her, I'd probably offer help. Or maybe she did and Streep rejected it. Either way, Streep and a couple others should have had help, I can't sing and I know nothing about it but even I could tell something was off.
That whole entire number "Lay all your love on me" is almost an example of what an unhealthy relationship is. Quote "And I'm possessive it isn't nice, you've heard me saying that smoking was my only vice" ... "Don't go sharing your devotion, lay all your love on me." I'm not an expert but...possessiveness isn't good, regardless of whether you admit it or not. That vice thing sounds a little aggressive, almost as if he's blaming her for only having smoking left, and "Don't go sharing your devotion"? Why not? Obviously, they won't devote themselves to another person but what about their passions? Their families?
In fact where the hell is Sky's (Dominic Cooper) family? Why don't they ever get mentioned? He barely even gets a backstory, why does Sophie love him? What drew her to him? Aside from his looks what is there about his personality other than he doesn't want a big white wedding and that he wants to travel? Character development is important. Also, side note, I was looking up Dominic Coopers surname on IMDb because I kept thinking it was Dominic Wood but I knew that wasn't right. Anyway, I looked it up under the Mamma Mia cast and crew list and you wanna know where he came up on the list? Below Gregoris, who is Gregoris? The guy who comes below Arina, and who is Arina? The woman who comes below Stavros. Who is Stavros? That guy on the boat toward the start of the movie who asked for Rosie's (Julie Walters) autograph. That's where this guy's character gets listed on IMDb, I mean you'd think he'd be listed with higher importance considering he's marrying the main character but whatever.
Quote: "Alone here on your own." Just a terribly written line. Did nobody look back on that and think...let's think about that for a second, does it sound stupid? That's it, stupid line. Next.
All of the potential fathers, Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Bill (Stellan Skarsgård) and Harry (Colin Firth) somehow work out they're her father but then none of them seem to think "hey, I'm here because I'm her father...what about these other guys?" Especially Sam, he came back and found out that Donna went off with another man so he should have at least thought "maybe Donna was a slut and these two could possibly be her father too...huh." Stupid.
Speaking of stupid, that scene in the church near the end. The wedding is about to start and Donna is the first to interrupt, then it's Sophie, then it's Sam and then they let the wedding start again. Only this time, Sophie interrupts to then cancel the wedding which it turns out that everybody is happy about. 1) If I were a guest at that wedding, I'd be pretty pissed that I walked up that big fucking hill to watch someone cancel their wedding. 2) If I were that child guest I'd be even more pissed. 3) If I were her mother, I'd be extra pissed that I paid for this whole big white wedding, that's wasted money right there. 4) Why the hell was Sky even that happy the wedding was called off? Not a good sign for your relationship there. Then Sam decides that the woman he loves has been avoiding him for three days and that when he last saw her she told him she wanted nothing to with him, that this would be the absolute perfect time to propose to her with Quote: "why waste a good wedding?" How romantic. And of course she accepts and they get married which I'm calling bullshit on because I doubt any priest from any church would accept this.
And finally, this thing holds you hostage like every other musical ever. It's trying to cram in as much Abba as it can and I'm just not a fan, you don't need to hold us hostage to applaud a movie. In the theatre I kind of get it because...applause is due in there, the actors work hard and it's nice to show your approval of what you've just seen. But in a film? Not necessary.
There is some good in this though, I mean, I love Julie Walters and Christine Baranski. Both are top actors and I love pretty much everything I've seen them in. Colin Firth is also a pretty enjoyable watch. Dominic Wood is pretty nice to look at even though his performance isn't that wonderful. The music and some of the choreography is pretty good. I mean that's pretty rare but when it's good it's good and should be given credit.
I guess that's it, looking back on the film it's not as good as I remember it with all the holes and stuff but I'm probably still gonna watch it as a guilty pleasure. That's it for tonight...bye bye.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then please go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.
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