Mamma Mia!

At the risk of opening up the whole “he’s gay” thing again, I admit, at the outset, that I went to see Mamma Mia of my own free will and choice, and I’d do it again. I saw it with my wife, my three sisters, and My Fiancée, and a good time was had by all.

I liked it. A lot.

Glenn Beck has said that seeing Mamma Mia more than once will make your testicles fall off, but I think he’s speaking solely on his own behalf. I’m one of a handful of heterosexual men who digs good musical theatre, and my libido has been surprisingly unaffected. Still, I can’t imagine anyone not having a good time at this flick. It’s genuinely cheerful, devoid of sneering irony or saccharine cynicism. It’s impossible to walk out of this movie without having a smile on your face.

That’s not to say it makes a lick of sense. The plot is wafer thin, and the whole thing is paced like a musical revue. Snippets of dialogue serve only to move the thing from one song to another, and if you think about anything for more than three seconds, it all falls apart.

Consider: Meryl Streep plays Donna, a single mother who got pregnant one summer twenty years ago and remains shaky on her child’s paternity. Apparently, Donna’s mother was so upset with her that he kicked her out of the house when she found out.

Meryl Streep is 59 years old.

If I were her mom two decades ago, I’d have kicked her out of the house, too. Pregnant or no, if you’re pushing forty, it’s time to spread your wings and fly. (Andrew Fullen, take note.) All of the potential fathers are the same age as Streep, and they sing about how they dated her in the time “of the flower power,” which would have been back around the time Meryl would have been the right age to play this role. It would have been simple to set the thing as a period piece back in the 80s, but they mention the Internet and other 21st Century staples and throw off the entire chronology.

Then get to the issue of the men themselves. Each of them has achieved a significant amount of worldly success, yet they all drop everything when they get a bogus invite from Donna to come to her daughter’s wedding on a remote Greek island. Two of them only had one-night stands with this woman. It’s hard to believe that Donna could be so memorable as to derail three lives with the mere memory of her good lovin’, but that’s what you have to accept to make this movie fly. Then, when they show up, Donna’s daughter tells them she wrote the letters, but please don’t let her mom know. Incredibly, they all agree. So Donna just accepts that three of her old flames have all shown up at the island at the same time coincidentally.

It strains credulity, I tells ya!

And you don’t care. About any of that. That’s because the music is so much fun and everyone’s having such a great time. I was never really an ABBA devotee back in the day, but I thoroughly enjoyed these songs. They’re very theatrical, and they feel as if they were written in support of this story, not strung together haphazardly. They’re actually more consistent than the flimsy dialogue. And they’re always fun to watch.

I should note that much has been made of the fact that Pierce Brosnan can’t sing. That’s not entirely true – he can carry a tune well enough, but vocally, he’s amateurish. He’s straining the whole time, as if he’s trying to sing during a bowel movement. Yet he’s so committed to the enterprise that his lack of talent is endearing. He doesn’t shy away from what should be an embarrassing performance, and he ends up giving one of the most memorable performances in the whole flick. I don’t think I’d buy a Pierce Brosnan CD, but I certainly enjoyed him in this flick.

I also enjoyed Orson Scott Card’s recent review of this movie, which argued that Mamma Mia is great entertainment but a reprehensible social artifact. That is to say, the movie depends on the audience’s respect and admiration for the traditional family while, at the same time, rejecting the necessity of marriage and fidelity. And he’s right, although I think he overstates his case somewhat. True, the young girl who was planning to get married suddenly doesn’t go through with it for completely arbitrary plot reasons – she has to get out of the way so that Donna can have the stage with her one true love – but there is a marriage, and Donna’s family is more traditional at the end of the film than at the beginning. Card also laments the fact that one character’s homosexuality is treated solely as a punchline, yet having read Card’s review prior to seeing the film, I found this less disconcerting than I had anticipated. So I recommend reading his review prior to seeing the film so you can feel righteously indignant in advance.

I’m not gay.