ABBA dabba do, ‘Mamma Mia!’ is one fun film

Friday, Aug. 1, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Peter Mountain⁄Universal Pictures Sam (Pierce Brosnan) rekindles romance with his former girlfriend Donna (Meryl Streep) in the musical comedy, ‘‘Mamma Mia,” based on the hit Broadway show. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

And since this is a musical, it may take some time getting used to the singing and dancing.

At the same time, it’s easy to get in a dither watching adorable and soon-to-be married Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) ache to know her dad’s identity.

The story begins the day before 20-year-old Sophie’s wedding. With her bedraggled mom, hotel owner Donna (Meryl Streep) running around her decrepit inn attempting to fix rusty hinges and cracks in the tile floors, Sophie is planning a major surprise.

A few months before she read her mom’s diary and learned of three possible papas.

Miss Nosey decided to invite the three gentlemen to her wedding, and amazingly, even the one-night stands show up. It gets almost creepy, but not quite, when Sophie reads the G-rated diary to her two best friends.

Still, oldsters shouldn’t be too hard on mom; she was living in the feel good 1970s and free love, or whatever you want to label it, was perhaps a little too plentiful.

Donna’s lifelong girlfriends Rosie (Julie Walters) and Tanya (Christine Baranski) arrive for the nuptials, and then the real fun begins.

Once the threesome was known as the girl band Donna and the Dynamos and they bring down the house with their antics.

Guessing who might be the father isn’t easy from beginning to end; Donna doesn’t seem the least bit happy to see any of her former lovers.

With not one forlorn look, Streep doesn’t offer a clue.

The musical may have been a major hit as soon as it opened in London in 1999, but a movie musical can be a little more risky.

Audiences don’t usually see movie actors spontaneously burst into song or perform over-the-top chorus line numbers.

It could have been a kitschy mess, especially with movie stars such as Streep, and her former play-dates Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård, working their pipes.

In fact, during their solos, the audience couldn’t help but indulge in some good-natured laughter.

Still, who really cares if the two-time Oscar winner Streep and a former James Bond make a little minced calamari out of ABBA’s songs.

Somehow it all works, especially with the aquamarine Aegean Sea as a backdrop.

The play’s writer, Catherine Johnson, also wrote the movie, staying faithful to her original script.

Director Phyllida Lloyd was smart to bring in a cadre of movie stars and character actors along with loads of pretty twenty-somethings strutting around in swimsuits.

Even better, in keeping with Greece’s old-country folk feel, the cooks, gardeners and neighbors become a Greek chorus, offering insights into the mayhem.

Fluff can be fabulous.