Momma mia!
Well, I went to see uber-chick flick Momma Mia last night. I had a date with a young lady and I love Abba anyway, so I thought, what the hell. How bad could it be?
How bad, indeed. Yes. Well.
The film centers around a young lady living with her mother on a small island somewhere near Greece; they operate a run-down little hotel. The girl doesn’t quite know who here father is, but has narrowed it down to three men with whom her mother had an affair over a three-week period back in the day. She invites them all to her upcoming wedding, without her mother’s knowledge.
There. Simple, right? Family hijinx, some romantic entanglement, and a good time can be had by all. Throw in some licensed Abba music, and bada-bing, bada-boom, ya got yerself a movie. If only it ended there.
I like some old-fashioned Hollywood musicals… Seven Brides For Seven Brothers is always entertaining, just as an example; I also like old Doris Day movies. But, I’m starting to think, maybe the period of the Hollywood musical is just passed. Or maybe, in the post-cynical modern era, modern filmmakers simply aren’t capable of creating decent material in that genre anymore. There seem to be other types of films, like the innocent teen romances of old, which just get made; maybe that’s the case with the musical also.
All I know is, as with Sweeney Todd, I found the constant music-in-my-face approach nearly unbearable. A musical, sure, I get it, but do they have to sing every five freakin’ minutes? And do all characters have to sing, even the annoying people standing in the back? With Sweeney Todd, I was watching the DVD, and could (and did!) use the fast-forward button liberally. With Momma Mia, I was stuck in the theater, on a date, and I couldn’t fast forward, or leave.
The young protagonist was very lovely; gorgeous, in fact. And she had a fantastic singing voice. But she was just too consciously cute for her own good - every step, every facial tic has to be inexpressibly precious. Her eyes are big enough, but the way they filmed her, she looked like a Keane print come to life.
Meryl Streep played her mother. Meryl Streep is no longer a young lady. Meryl Streep cannot sing terribly well. Oh, she can hit some good notes, but for entire songs - no, no, my therapist says I’m not ready to go there. The songs are pre-recorded, naturally, and the actors then lip-synch to the recording; and, being award-winning actress she is, Streep emotes every line, every word, in excrutiating detail. There’s a scene where she sings to Pierce Brosnan, an entire song, and the poor guy has to stand there and act all emotional and interested, and not clasp his hands over his ears in pain. The guy was James Bond, for chrissake; he shouldn’t have to endure this sort of cinematic torture. He deserves a medal. (Or a license to kill… Meryl Streep.)
Yeah, Pierce Brosnan plays one of the would-be dads, as does Colin Firth and some other guy who looks familiar but whose name I can’t be bothered to look up. Firth’s character comes out of the closet near the end of the film, but it’s totally unconvincing. And the third guy ends up with the little troll-woman who… well, I can’t speak of that. It’s too soon. Otherwise, the three guys were the best part of the movie, totally likeable and believeable characters. It would have ended great if they had sailed off on their boat together just as the little island sank into the sea, with every single one of the other characters drowning agonizingly in the background.
Oh, there’s more, but I’m exhausted, and I’m starting to weep again. I could mention the ratlike groom-to-be, the black guy with the poufy hair, the villagers dancing, the exquisitely bad shitty-music-video choreography… but I won’t. The nightmares… the nightmares are the worst thing. I dream of Meryl Streep standing over me, her enormous nose nearly touching my face, her voice warbling its way thru a butchery of a great Abba tune…. I used to like Abba, you know. They used to represent everything that was pure and good about childhood in the 1970’s, all the sweetness and promise that came with a serene summer’s day.
When the police arrived, I had my hands around my date’s neck, alternately sobbing and gibbering mad conspiracy theories. The straitjacket, the cold concrete floor of the jail cell, the sanity hearing - those are just blurs to me at this point. Only the daily medications still get me through.
Well, maybe it wasn’t that bad of a movie. But, Goddamn, it wasn’t good.