Mamma Mia Review

14 July 2008

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Cast: Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård and Julie Walters

Dir: Phyllida Lloyd

Rating: 3.5/5

The revival of the musical continues as Meryl Streep leads an all star cast in the latest to hit the big screen, an adaptation of the hit Broadway and West End show.

An independent, single mother who owns a small hotel on an idyllic Greek island, Donna (Streep) is about to let go of Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), the spirited daughter she’s raised alone.

For Sophie’s wedding, Donna has invited her two lifelong best girlfriends practical and no-nonsense Rosie (Julie Walters) and wealthy, multi-divorcee Tanya (Christine Baranski) from her one-time backing band, Donna and the Dynamos. But Sophie has secretly invited three guests of her own.

On a quest to find the identity of her father to walk her down the aisle, she brings back three men from Donna’s past to the Mediterranean paradise they visited 20 years earlier.

Seeing Meryl Streep belting out Super Trooper in a spandex may not be what we have come to expect from this Oscar winning actresses film but it's what you get with Mamma Mia.

And Streep's desire to participate in such a project further highlights her versatility as a performer as well as her ability not to take herself too seriously - and who would have known she was hiding a rather impressive set of vocal pipes.

And this could be said of any of it's established supporting cast that includes Pierce Brosnan as well as Julie Walters, who brings a bucket load of humour to the whole project.

While the younger members of the cast Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper, who play love birds Sophie and Skye, are clearly a little more trained in the vocal department than their older co-stars and work well together but it is the likes of Streep, Walters, Brosnan and Firth that really do steal the show.

And while neither Walters nor Brosnan are natural singers the pair belt out a string of well know ABBA songs that will want you to jump up and join in and if you want to see Brosnan, Skarsgard and Firth in lycra watch the closing credits - legends!

Away from the cast it is a touching story of a woman haunted by past loves and lost chances as she struggles to let go of her only child and the child's desperate need to find her father and discover who she is.

This film offers plenty of fun, even if it is a bit touristy, with a soundtrack that will have you singing along, ABBA's music really is the icing on the cake.

But it's the big names behind this project that really make it work and you wonder if there had been smaller names would it have caused such a stir.

Despite this is a fun filled couple of hours and a perfect summer hit.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw