MAMMA MIA!

As part of a wedding anniversary treat, I went to see Mama Mia, the film, the other day. I have to say that my daughter's recommendation was not wrong. I enjoyed it in ways I wouldn't have thought possible. It was funny and mostly the songs were appropriate to the plot or cunningly reworked. Okay, the plot was a bit sugary but it was fun. I found the re-using of part of the background music to significant parts of my youth was strangely moving, I think it was to do with the kind of content of the plot at the salient points and the resonances they had with my emotional life at the time (which I'd kind of forgotten). The music pulled the remembered emotional texture to the fore. I was also impressed by Meryl Streeps abilities both as a dancer and a singer. There were some nice touches, including a scene where two of the 'fathers' discuss the night before and we the audience think they are each misunderstanding the other. It turns out that only one misunderstanding takes place, and we were suckered. Nice.

Gotta say that the irritating bit was the wedding: presumably a Greek Orthodox chapel; but then the priest appears to be RC (after all that was the background already established for Meryl Streep's character), but who then goes on to officiate at a wedding where one character is a self-proclaimed divorce... and that's without the question of what the proper wedding preliminaries should be in that jurisdiction. But hey, sometimes facts need not to get in the way of a plot!
MAMMA MIA! The Global Smash Hit - The Movie Trailers