Oh Mama
Let’s get the disclaimers out of the way first: I am a straight man, I love Abba, I’ve seen Bjorn Again live supported not by a band but by a showing of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, despite this I’m perfectly comfortable with my sexuality, etc etc.
I saw Mama Mia! (the ! is very important) at the cinema last night. After the first 10 minutes it was already the campest thing I’d ever seen, and it went on from there. Words cannot adequately explain just how ludicrous, nor how compelling, this thing was. Every shot is so gaudy, every gesture so broad, every line so acted, that you will either be overwhelmed and swept up in its ocean of camp, or end up running away screaming after the first scenes.
Dr Kermode explains it far better than I:
I saw Mama Mia! (the ! is very important) at the cinema last night. After the first 10 minutes it was already the campest thing I’d ever seen, and it went on from there. Words cannot adequately explain just how ludicrous, nor how compelling, this thing was. Every shot is so gaudy, every gesture so broad, every line so acted, that you will either be overwhelmed and swept up in its ocean of camp, or end up running away screaming after the first scenes.
Dr Kermode explains it far better than I:
It has to be emphasised that Pierce Brosnan’s singing really is the worst you will ever hear in a professional production. You’d think as a trained actor he would be able to at least hold a tune. You would be grossly mistaken. And just when you think the thing is over, and Meryl and her menopausal friends have “done” Dancing Queen, Ms Streep staggers up to the camera, the very dictionary definition of “pissed up Auntie at a wedding” and slurs ‘Do you wanna nuvver one?!’ before launching into a not entirely restrained Waterloo.
Suffice to say, Mama Mia! in its own way is as viscerally, mind-shaggingly overwhelming as There Will Be Blood. Surely this will be the only time those two films will share the same sentence. Now let’s move on and say no more about it.
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