Oy Oy

Let me review Mamma Mia! – the movie adaptation of the Broadway musical about Sophie (HBO’s Big Love’s Amanda Seyfried), a twentysomething raised on a Greek island by Donna (Meryl Streep), a free-spirited single mother who never disclosed the identity of her father, and the three men Sophie invites to her wedding in order to figure which one might be the one who dot, dot, dotted her mother – in five bullets.

“Dot, dot dot,” by the way, it’s a thing they say in the less-than-impressive-but salvaged-by-the-great-ABBA-songbook movie.

Thank Sweden for “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme.” And “Take a Chance on Me.” And “The Winner Takes It All.”

I didn’t think I’d be able to resist this movie, but – my my – I did.

Here I go:

• Mighty Streep, doll face, you can sing, but you didn’t have to ham it up quite so much. And on-set hair and makeup people – they’re there for you. Let them comb your hair next time.


• Christine Baranski, you’re a goddess.


• Pierce Brosnan, as a singer you make an iconic James Bond, indeed.


• Did anyone else wonder what Lindsay Lohan might have done with Sophie? I hearted Seyfried with a passion – she’s a beacon of light. A star. But I couldn’t help but wonder what a Streep-Lohan re-team – they co-starred as mother and daughter in A Prairie Home Companion – would’ve done for Mamma Mia! – and Lohan’s career.


• As much as movie sucks – as off-key as its “S.O.S.” gets – ABBA always will be able to make it better.

My Rating **

Photo: Universal Pictures.