Mamma Mia!
Mamma Mia! Is fluffy musical summer popcorn fun that dodges its potential to be abysmal with the amazing performance of Meryl Streep. As Donna she effortlessly wears the mantle of a gracefully aging free spirit as easily as she personifies haughty sophistication in a number of other outstanding roles – but who knew she could sing so well? Her version of Winner Takes It All is a show stopper that should get some kind of nod at Oscar time. On the other side of the knockout scale we can be thankful that Pierce Brosnan as Sam is not assigned much singing at all. He’s one of her lovers from a hot Greek summer 21 years previous along with Harry (Colin Firth) and Bill (Stellan Skarsgård). Donna’s diary entries of her conquests from that summer fall into the hands of her daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) who, hoping to discover the identity of her real father secretly sends all 3 invitations to her upcoming wedding. They all return to the Greek Island that Donna never left but to Sophie’s dismay the mystery remains and Donna wants the trio gone. The story is a pretty simple one like much of the pedestrian choreography and the usually captivating Julie Walters is a miscast here but the genius of Mama Mia! lies in making a coherent storyline from the libretto of a limited repertoire of hits by the Swedish super group ABBA. The other inspired stroke was casting Streep as the lead character.