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+ Best $ Return of the Year: 11.72
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| Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried, obviously styled to be mother and daughter, in a heavily manipulated Greek landscape on a poster for Phyllida Lloyd's Mamma Mia! |
A beautiful young woman who has never known her father is getting married and invites the three men, who all may be her father, to come to her wedding in her mother's decrepit hotel on a Greek island.
Mamma Mia! is written by Catherine Johnson (Love Hurts (1993-94)), based on her own 1999 same-titled hit stage musical, built around the hits of Swedish pop quartet ABBA, and directed by Phyllida Lloyd (Gloriana (2000, TV movie)), whose theatrical debut it is.
The inevitable film version of the colossally popular London and Broadway smash 'jukebox musical' hit is a cheerful, energetic film that especially rouses joy in its lively musical numbers. - And as a consequence of the lovely cast, of whom Meryl Streep (The River Wild (1994)), Julie Walters (Billy Elliott (2000)) and Christine Baranski (Relative Strangers (2006)) are best.
Dominic Cooper (My Week with Marilyn (2011)) is miscast and looks like an only cute but not very bright or genuine husband-to-be. And below the colorful shenanigans the film wears on the nerves with its story: In part its gender-based, cliche-heavy stringency, - men and women who seem to come from different planets the whole way through, - and in part the problems with Streep's character: Though she seems like an intelligent woman, it is not until the end, - in a wedding scene that in a bizarre way is suddenly no longer the daughter's but instead her mother's, - that she realizes that it was her father-seeking daughter who had invited the three 'ghosts' of her romantic past to the island, (of course.) It is also hard to reconcile that this same charming, attractive mother character has spent her entire adult life on a Greek island without developing any meaningful relationships there, (all the locals are extras only.) To put it mildly; preposterous.
Related post:
Phyllida Lloyd: The Iron Lady (2011) - Meryl Streep's global triumph as Lady Thatcher
2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
Cost: 52 mil. $
Box office: 609.9 mil. $
= Mega-hit (returned 11.72 times its cost)
[Mamma Mia! premiered 30 June (London) and runs 108 minutes. Shooting took place in Marrakech, Morocco, Greece, the UK and in California. The film opened #2, behind fellow new release The Dark Knight, to a 27.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another two weeks in the top 5 (#3-#4) and grossed 144.1 mil. $ (23.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 94.3 mil. $ (15.5 %) and Germany with 39 mil. $ (6.4 %). It was the highest-grossing live-action musical until Beauty and the Beast (2017), the highest-grossing film directed by a woman until Wonder Woman (2017), and the 5th highest-grossing film of the year, (3rd highest-grossing 'internationally', that is without North America.) It was nominated for 2 Golden Globes, 3 BAFTAs, a Grammy and some other awards. Roger Ebert gave it a 2/4 star review, translating to a notch harder than this review. The film became the fastest-selling DVD release ever in the UK, selling 1.6 mil. units in its first day, ending with more than 5 mil. sales there. It fared similarly in Sweden, where ABBA are from, both in cinemas and on DVD. The-Numbers estimate the home video sales at more than 147.3 mil. $. The stars returned for Ol Parker's sequel Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again (2018), which was successful if not a mega-hit as its predecessor. Lloyd returned with The Iron Lady (2011), again with Streep. Streep returned first in Doubt (2008); Pierce Brosnan (Seraphim Falls (2006)) with a voice performance in Thomas & Friends: The Great Discovery - The Movie (2008) and physically in The Greatest (2009). Mamma Mia! is rotten at 54 % with a 5.53/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Mamma Mia!?
