Mamma mia

Just the thing for a summer's evening when you've spent all day pretty much lazing around, reading, eating, and staring at the gorgeous blue Swedish sky!

I wanted to see "Mamma mia" in Sweden so that I could see the original version of the movie made from the ABBA musical. It was interesting to see that the Swedish subtitles were the Swedish words to the songs that had the same general idea, but were not exact translations of the English song texts.

Meryl Streep - what a wonderful actress! She is just 100% Donna, so utterly believable that she has a hotel on this Greek island and raised her little girl alone. Her girl is getting married, and having found Mom's diary she has an idea of the three guys who are possibly her Dad, so she invites them all to her wedding - in secret. And of course, they all come.

It is really amazing that you can string together all these popular ABBA songs and actually come up with something resembling a story line! Oh, sure, there's a little bit of dialogue stitching it together, but there is a lot of singing and dancing, and it is fun to watch! You have the feeling of being right there in the middle of it - so catch the movie while it is in the theater.

Pierce Brosnan, one of the prospective fathers and normally the protrayer of James Bond, is of course dashing (especially with the 3-day-beard he grows overnight). But he's lucky that James Bond is never called on to sing - 'cause he can't carry a tune. No matter, Meryl Streep actually gets so carried away in a scene just below the church (beautifully filmed with the setting sun in her hair and the wind gently blowing her clothes all around her) that you almost think that this is *her* song ("The winner takes it all").

Anyway, happy end and all that. And do stay for the credits - The three men in their ABBA costumes are just soooooo comical, you fall over laughing! And see if you can see Benny Andersson - (one of the B's in ABBA and co-writer of the songs and producer of musical and film). The audience put up a roar when they saw him ('natch, we're in Sweden). I didn't get it until the credits, so I guess I'll just have to go see the movie again for scientific purposes. :D

At the end the audience *clapped* - and then burst out singing the final song, "Thank you for the music". Indeed - thanks for this movie, I really enjoyed it!