Mamma Mia – Here We Go Again!

by ameliareviews

It has been two years almost to the day since I last posted something here. Out of everything that I’ve seen at the theatre, on television or at the cinema in that time, of course it would be Mamma Mia that brought this blog out of retirement. As always, there are spoilers below, please read with caution.

I was 16 years old when Mamma Mia! came out. Despite never having been an ABBA fan or having seen the West End musical, I was so excited that I wore a themed outfit to the cinema, complete with badly applied aqua blue eyeliner in homage to the band. I queued up with all the mums, giddy at the prospect of being amongst the first to see it. One month later and I could sing you the whole film from beginning to end.

Fast forward nine years and the discovery that they would be making another. I was sceptical. All the cheery and best known songs had been used up, what could be left? Was Mamma Mia – Here We Go Again going to be the gritty sequel, populated with tunes from the sad end of the ABBA songbook in which its members were going through horrible marriage breakups? Well, not quite. It’s true that this is a more melancholy offering than its predecessor but many of the old favourites have made a comeback, alongside some chirpier numbers that I didn’t know existed until I saw this.

On a technical level, the script is all over the place. Written by director Ol Parker, Richard Curtis and original scriptwriter Catherine Johnson, it sometimes feel as if none of the three has ever seen the first film, let alone actually written it. The timelines don’t match up (If she was born in 1980 and the film is set today, Sophie ought to be 38, rather than the implied 25.) and details from the first film have been abandoned. I’m pretty sure Cher’s character was supposed to be a terrifying Catholic battleaxe and also dead. Almost everything Sophie read in Donna’s diary in the first film didn’t come to pass, making it difficult to know which version of events to believe. What saves it from descending into a total mess is its heart and soul, both of which it has in abundance. It’s a better directed film than the first and most certainly better sung (we’re mercifully saved too much of Pierce Brosnan’s dulcet tones) and the thread of sadness running through it makes it feel more grown up and emotionally complex.

The film’s story is simple. Donna Sheridan has, as was much feared when the trailer was released last Christmas, passed away due to unknown causes, leaving a gaping hole in the modern sections. We join her daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) on the eve of the reopening of Hotel Bella Donna. It has been renovated into a lovely, but ultimately less soulful version of the villa of the first film. It’s the sort of place Instagram influencers would hang out in their droves, posing on sun loungers with enormous glasses of rosé. She and her husband Sky (Dominic Cooper) have hit a rocky patch, not helped his being in New York and her being on her own in Greece and trying to open a new hotel. Rosie (Julie Walters) and Tanya (Christine Baranksi) arrive to help and regale Sophie with the tale of how Donna set the place up in the first place. The story then flip flops between Donna’s summer of love in 1979 and the present day.

The stronger sections are set in 1979. Donna, fresh from Oxford and snogging Celia Imrie, embarks on a glorious post university gap year. On her odyssey around Europe, Donna encounters the three dads. Firstly, in a shabby Parisian hotel, she meets Harry, played by Hugh Skinner aka Prince Wils from The Windsors aka Will the intern from W1A. Skinner’s performance is much the same as usual but is no less charming for it. His version of Waterloo, mirroring Colin Firth’s thickly accented but less than perfect vocals, is one of the best scenes and the sight of him striding along wearing an enormous feathered hat and playing a baguette as a saxophone alone should win the film a Best Picture nod. Young Harry’s time on screen is sadly cut short as he never makes it to the island, missing the boat thanks to a dithering passport control agent, a scene stealing Omid Djailli. It’s a shame as I would’ve loved to have seen the relationship between him and Donna grow beyond a slightly awkward pity shag.

Once she has fled Paris to Kalokairi, she meets Bill, newcomer Josh Dylan, a man so good looking I was unsure of what to do with myself. The living embodiment of Apollo but with an earring and a boat, he and Lily James have crackling chemistry and the best song. Dylan is by far the best male vocalist in the film. Why Did It Have To Be Me? is an absolute banger (It’s been on a constant loop in both my head and on Spotify for a week) with a cheeky dance routine and the pair look incredible together. I believe that their reunion, in which he LITERALLY CATCHES HER AS SHE FALLS OFF A BAR LIKE SOME SORT OF HERO, ends up with the two of them diving for pearls and then sleeping together results in Sophie. The extreme blondeness of the three of them certainly suggests it.

Dreamboat on a dream boat.

 

Last but not least she meets Sam, her true love. Sam is the least interesting of the three love interests, primarily because he doesn’t play baked goods as instruments or compete in yacht races. He is also something of a fuckboy, abandoning his lovely looking fiancée to find himself or whatever, only to immediately screw someone else. He is the Adam from Love Island of this film. That said, Jeremy Irvine does an admirable job with the least interesting role, perfecting Pierce Brosnan’s Irish-Not-Irish accent without descending into straight up mimicry. He looks nice whilst wrangling horses in the rain (War Horse flashbacks anyone?) too, which is an added bonus.

Jessica Keenan Wynn and Alexa Davies round out the younger cast as Rosie and Tanya. Both are wonderful and not in the film enough, especially Keenan Wynn as Tanya, who seems to have bottled the very essence of Christine Baranski. The moment she purrs at Sam that she ‘visually enjoys’ him is a highlight and a line I hope to steal and use in the future.

Lily James carries the film and it belongs to her. She gives what is possibly the performance of a lifetime, full of charm, humour and genuinely moving. She is radiant as the younger Donna and wholly convincing, despite not looking a thing like a younger Meryl Streep.  She lights up the film and her presence is sorely missed when she’s off screen. She’s a Stevie Nicks-esque beauty with a seemingly endless supply of amazing boho skirts and the sort of beachy waves that magazines constantly tell you are achievable but aren’t because your hair gets knotted and a bit sticky. It’s not hard to see why she has men willing to follow her to remote islands based on a one night stand.

James’ vocals too are incredibly strong, she has the range to be able to infuse When I Kissed The Teacher with the poppy punch an opening number needs and her rendition of My Love, My Life, the emotional apex of the film (not least because Ghost Meryl shows up in her iconic dungarees. I cried so much) is sublime. When she walks into the church holding her new baby, the setting sun crowning her head, singing that she’s invincible, I believed her wholeheartedly and my heart did a funny leap. There are simply not enough good words to say about her, they could not have cast a better Donna.

GHOST MERYL WE LOVE YOU

The returning cast are game as usual, with Christine Baranski highkicking her way into our hearts and Colin Firth taking the whole thing about as seriously as it should be taken (not hugely) but this part of the film falls flatter in comparison to 1979. That is, until Cher turns up. Actual real life superstar Cher, looking delightfully strange with a huge white bouffant do. She has arrived to commit being a grandmother and, although she doesn’t know it, to be reunited with the man who broke her heart many years ago, Señor Cienfuegos, played by Andy Garcia. (no prizes for guessing what his first name is.) I’m ashamed to say that I nearly gave myself a hernia laughing at Fernando. The epic clunkiness needed to get into that song is absolutely hysterical. The fact that not a breath is taken between Ruby proclaiming FERNANDO at her long lost lover and the song beginning is the comedic apex of the film, primarily because it was so earnestly, yet knowingly done. I applaud all involved for appearing to get through it with a straight face.

The plot may not be perfect and the singing may at times be a little off colour but none of that matters. In terms of bringing joy and warmth, a more perfect film has not been made in recent years. Mamma Mia 2 feels like it’s doing you good, it’s a vitamin D shot of a film. The obsession I had when I was 16? Here we go again…

P.S. Where were Sophie’s best pals? They were super cute and they had their own little theme song, I missed them.