Dir. Phyllida Lloyd ,US, 2008, 109 mins
Cast: Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Julie Walters
Review by Carol Allen
Based on the hit stage
musical, which was built around the songs of Abba, this
film is a must for fans of either of those and pure entertainment
and a real crowd pleaser in its own right. This is a first
film for Lloyd, who directed the stage show as well as
being a veteran of opera, the National Theatre and other
theatrical establishments and she has taken to the language
of film like a duck to water. To build a story round Abba
songs was by no means a daft idea, in that they have very
narrative lyrics, which also carry loads of memories for
those who grew up to the sound of their music. You hear
little gasps and laughs of recognition as the cast go into
old favourites like "Dancing
Queen" or "I Don't Want to Talk", which also
support the story in true Rogers and Hammerstein tradition.
Hard up ("Money, money, money") but happy Donna
(Streep) runs a crumbling small hotel on Greek island with
her daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), who is about to marry
Sky (Dominic Cooper). Donna has always refused to say who
Sophie's father is but Sophie discovers from her mother's
diary that it could be one of three men and without letting
on to mum she's secretly invited them all to her wedding.
They are businessman Sam (Brosnan), adventurer Bill (Stellan
Skarsgård) and banker Harry (Colin Firth). They all
arrive together at the height of the wedding preparations,
along with Donna's best mates from her youth, Rosie (Walters)
and Tanja (Christina Baranski). Donna is horrified, tries
to get the guys to leave and various complications and lots
of jolly singing and dancing ensue, until Donna is once again
reunited with the father of her child.
Streep is very good as Donna. Despite
her straight acting image, she's been in a Broadway musical
("Happy End")
and sang before on film in "Postcards from the Edge" and "Prairie
Home Companion" and she looks like she's really enjoying
the whole song and dance bit. Walters as wise cracking Rosie
and Baranski, who has a touch of "Sex and the City"'s
Samantha as multiple divorcee Tanja, give spirited support
and really strut their stuff with Streep as Donna and the
Dynamos, the seventies Abba style girl group in which they
sang when young. The three blokes all play nicely together
and Brosnan still looks good when he takes his shirt off,
as indeed does young Cooper. He and Seyfried make an appealaing
young couple, but this is unusually a film where the focus
is on the older generation, being primarily a story about
those who to anyone under 30 are old people (i.e. over 50),
falling in love and behaving in a silly way - old girls just
want to have fun, as it were. The chorus of locals join in
with gusto and the scenery looks great. And don't leave before
the end credits or you'll miss a delightfully camp grand
finale performance from Donna and the Dynamos. This is a
real fun night out at the pictures, which could well later
on become one of those cult movies like "Rocky Horror" and "The
Sound of Music" with late night screenings, where the
audience wear fancy dress and join in all the songs.
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