Gracias Por La Música
So against my better judgment I went with my mother to go see Mamma Mia! yesterday. I say my better judgment because although I do enjoy musicals it's kind of weird for a bachelor like me to go see a movie centered around ABBA songs with his mother. That does send out a certain kind of vibe, you know. But ho, I soldiered forth, and remember, there but for the grace of God go you.
And dear lord, was the theatre ever busy last night. I realize there had been some rain earlier in the afternoon, but goodness, people! You don't need to run inside and watch Step Brothers at the first sign of miserable weather! Really! It's like how on last Tuesday, because there was a bit of rain during the day, there was absolutely nobody on the bike trail that evening. However, on Thursday, when there was no rain all day but the temperature was an entire two degrees above Tuesday, you couldn't help but trip over the tiny dogs all over the damn place. Plus, there were two shirtless dudes riding a tandem bicycle chasing geese and calling each other "bro", and if you think a confirmed bachelor taking his mother to see an ABBA musical is pretty gay, just consider that. Anyways, because of this mad rush at the movie theatre it took about fifteen minutes to travel ten feet in the concession line and eventually I gave up to return later during the Chiquitita musical number. The aftermath of the concession combat looked horrible. It was like the Vietnam of concession stands. The shivering clerks were standing ankle deep in spilled popcorn with Coke syrup splattered all over their shirts. I sense that some intense cases of post-traumatic stress disorder are developing.
So what did I think? Well, first, I have to give some minor spoiler warnings. I'm not going to reveal the main twist of who the girl's father is, but pretty much everything else is fair game. And really now, if you're going to this movie because you think the story is going to be compelling, then honestly, go f*** yourself.
First of all, I'd like to point out that Amanda Seyfried, the girl who plays the main character Sophie, has huge snoobs. The filmmakers also made no attempt to hide that fact. So hooray for that!
Also, I'd like to point out that the main conceit of her inviting three strange men to her wedding on the off chance of one of them being her father is kind of off-putting. I mean, they do mention it a few times in the plot that it's kind of a shitty thing to do. But in the end, the men are kind of non-chalant about the whole thing. I tell you what, if I get invited to some island and discover that my ex-girlfriend owns the place, a bunch of her other ex-boyfriends are there as well, then we find out the whole thing is a ruse to find out to see who the girl’s father is, and to top it all off, everybody's singing Spice Girls songs all the time? I’m burning that resort down and I’m getting the hell out of there.
Anyways, as for the movie, the first fifteen minutes or so are on a level of dogshit so foul that it could only come sphincter-fresh from Cerberus after a Taco Bell bender. Most of the characters leave terrible first impressions, and the opening musical numbers just aren’t that good. Some of the movie was filmed on location, while the rest was filmed on a soundstage, but the filmmakers make absolutely no attempt to blend the two and the result is pretty jarring. Thankfully, the level of good to bad starts to even out so it's only bad about half the time, and around the halfway point the film's goofy charm finally starts to overcome the various shortcomings.
Meryl Streep's dancing during the first Mamma Mia sequence was pretty bizarre. It's was sort of like a choreographed seizure with some hot flashes thrown in for good measure. Still, not as weird as a bunch of dudes trying to do a dance routine while wearing flippers, which happens later.
During the Dancing Queen segment the entire female population of the island goes dancing down to the docks, leaving a great deal of men flummoxed and hanging off the side of buildings. Not only is this analogous to what the whole Mamma Mia experience is actually like, it also enables some dude with a piano on his boat to add the signature piano flourishes to the end of the song. I just had to wonder about that guy and his history. Did he find an old piano for sale thirty years ago and hear it speaking to him? “Buy me, put me on your boat, and you won’t regret it!” And so he did, and thus thirty years later he was able to improve the whole Dancing Queen experience for a bunch of “happy and carefree” women. I suppose he must look back on the whole thing and on some level feel a touch disappointed. That’s what you get for letting a musical instrument tell you what to do. Remember, not all destinies are great.
Meryl Streep’s version of The Winner Takes It All is supposed to be the show-stopping number, but if you're not into being swept away by schmaltz a lot of entertainment can be gleaned by imagining the Pierce Brosnan character thinking, "Christ! When is this crazy b**** going to stop singing?" I doubt Pierce Brosnan intended that interpretation of his performance but damn if it isn't easy considering he spends the entire piece standing straight as a board and glancing from side to side like he's going to steal her necklace and he's checking to see if anybody's watching.
Also, at the end of the song Meryl Streep is so overcome by emotion she has to dash up the stairs to her daughter’s wedding, with Pierce Brosnan quickly following. What makes it great is that when she reaches the top she leans out of a window and looks down to see a shouting Pierce Brosnan standing on a rocky outcropping. I’m sorry, I burst out laughing at this part. So, about two-thirds of the way up Pierce decided he’d jump out onto a craggy rock with dangerous footing just to shout dramatically instead of bothering to go up another flight of stairs? I mean, she has your attention already, she is singing some damn pop song about you, after all. I don’t think some weird flair for the dramatic is going to get you any more points.
Of course, that's nothing compared to the preview for Nights in Rodanthe, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks and yet another one of those baby-boomer romances that comes down the pipe every now and then. Richard Gere is an overworked surgeon who discovers the joy of life through a romance with an overworked North Carolina inn owner. What really took the cake were the shots of horses running down a beach that were worked into the closing montage. That kind of cheese don't come natural. That's some moldy Velveeta right there.
So that was the Mamma Mia! experience for me. I imagine yours might be quite different from mine, but then, I was always a special child. Arrivederci.
