|
Releases
about the film made sure to remind us one caveat about
it: the film uses song of Abba, once Sweden’s greatest
exports, but it is not about the life/lives of Abba and
its four members. The film rather utilizes the original
songs in a no-holds-barred fashion—with a complete and
crazy disregard for musical history and reputation.
The
story is flimsy. This is good. The songs are not. Okay,
perhaps, they once were, and this opinion depends on
which side of the late ’70s and early ’80s generations
you fall in. If by that time you were hooked already to
Philippine TV, then you must have gotten tired listening
to the songs over and over again. The music of Abba is
rhythmic and jumpy. They made for good dance-contest
pieces because the songs always began with soft melodic
intros and jumped into a faster tempo, which then
demanded applause. For starlets and quasi-stars, the
music was an easy cover for whatever false and weak
steps they were made to perform. You could call Abba
songs singer- and dancer-proof.
If you
were the type whose rite of passage from near boyhood to
manhood ricocheted back to “juvenilehood,” then Abba
music must have accompanied your journey through “Friday
nights and the nights are low” as you ogled dancing
queens who were “young and sweet and only 17.” Where
were you when someone up there on-stage asked the
question: “Chiquita, tell me what’s wrong?”
If you
are part of this generation who knew Abba, then you must
be experiencing a rush of memories. For Abba is a pop
history of memories, references and reminders.
It did
not take too long for a writer to see the load of charm
in Abba’s songs and for producers to recognize how much
recognition—and audience—the Abba sound can generate.
Thus, the musical Mamma Mia! was born, written by
Catherine Johnson. From the theater, it made a natural
and celebrity-filled jump to film.
The
story is about a mother, who, in her younger days, had
separate affairs with three men. She conceived a child
from that period but was never sure who the father was.
She raised her child in a Greek island. One day, the
child, now a young woman about to get married, discovers
her mom’s diary and there she finds out about the
potential father. There were three of them.
In this
musical, who would play the mother? And who would play
the fathers?
Playing
against types and expectations, the film secured the
services of three leading men with utterly no
connections to the word “musical”. If the music and the
people behind it were the musical inkblots of the ’70s
and the ’80s, the men who play the potential fathers had
their film cords connected somewhere other than in films
where characters broke into songs.
Stellan
Skarsgård, the Swedish actor known for his portrayal of
Goya in Milos Forman’s despairing film, is Bill. The
suave Brit is Colin Firth, with a patent for
cosmopolitan angst. The two sing out their roles.
Tolerable and realistic, you may say. But there’s the
third potential father, Pierce Brosnan. He—hold your
breath—also sings. In fact, he does it with the brio of
one who appears to us that he believes in what he is
doing, what his director has asked him to do.
The
mother has two friends: Rosie and Tanya, played,
respectively, by Julie Walters and Christine Baranski.
The two are magnificent character actors, with Walters
prominent for her share of acting nominations. Together,
the two are shamelessly hilarious scene-stealers. The
two, it follows, also sing with lots of guts and passion
and panache to drive any doubt about their musical
talents. Given and demonstrated in the process is the
fact that Walters and Baranski inhabit their characters
with abandon.
In
Mamma Mia! a new star is born. A lovely young
actress, Amanda Seyfried, plays Sophie, the young girl
who grew up not knowing who her father was. Youth is her
given charm. She sings mightily. She must be praised
also for surviving amid senior performers who look like
they mightily enjoyed their roles. But Mamma Mia!
It is a forgone conclusion that Meryl Streep as Donna,
with the exception of Abba, is the film.
It is
all right to like a musical for its highlights, the
so-called show-stoppers. Mamma Mia! has lots of
the stuff. The song “Dancing Queen,” for example, just
rises and rises until the entire female population of
the Greek island is singing as if a Greek chorus on a
supernatural high. Euripides must have trembled with
glee in his tomb.
The real
show-stopper of the film, however, is Streep. She rants,
she giggles and she coos. In the once-tacky “The Winner
Takes It All” (it is not anymore post-Mamma Mia!),
Streep is Melina Mercouri and Irene Papas reengineered
to sound like Olivia Newton John and Alicia Keys, with
the heaving of Judy Garland. She is American Idol
achieving perfect pitch while never losing the character
she is playing. Through her, the music of Abba reaches
heights unbeknownst before and, in the process,
transcending kitsch and camp, all done with affection.
Mamma
Mia!
is a sweet and pleasant lesson in suspension of
disbelief and there is no one to thank except the music.
The
romp/rebellion is directed by Phyllida Loyd who, it is
said, also directs operas. |
