So I finally got the chance to see Mamma Mia the other night. It turned out to be the first part of a musical double header because as soon as it ended (not soon enough), I ran down to the new, fantastic Lighthouse cinema in Smithfield to see CSNY:Deja Vu, Neil Young's documentary on his 2006 Living with War tour with his old muckers, Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Mamma Mia.. Let's begin by saying that it's every bit as bad as you've heard. Badly written, barely directed, terrible sets - sure, the Greek island exteriors look amazing but anytime we're indoors, the lighting (to quote Antony Lane) would disgrace a bathroom and behind the actors, out the windows, you could see perfect blue skies that could only have been painted cardboard.
You probably know the story - 20 year old girl lives on the island with her mother (Meryl Streep) and is getting married. She wants to invite the father she never knew to her wedding but she's not sure who it might be so she takes a chance (chance-takea-chance-takea-takea- chance-chance) on 3 blokes that Meryl shacked up with 20 years ago. In 1988, presumably. The fact that the photos of each of the guys back then portray them as hippies and punk rockers goes unnoticed. The 3 lads arrive on the island not realising why they're there. Pierce Brosnan is a frustrated artist/architec type (I think he's an artist - he works in an office with men in suits but he wears jeans so he's definitely not a typical suit type. And he talks about 'drawing the whole island that summer' at one point), Colin Firth is an uptight city banker and Stellan Skarsgård is a sailor free-spirit type. They fumble around, meet their possible daughter and it all kicks off..
And boy does it kick off. No opportunity is missed to throw an ABBA song at every scene.. Which is fine - I love ABBA. So, when our bride-to-be is telling her 2 annoying, shrill, you really wouldn't want to be sitting anywhere near them on the bus best friends about inviting her possible fathers, they run around singing Honey Honey. When Meryl is complaining to her 2 annoying, shrill, you wouldn't want to be sitting anywhere near them on the bus best friends about her money worries, she runs around singsing Money Money Money. Are you getting it? When Colin Firth is telling the boys about that summer he spent with Meryl, he sings Our Last Summer. And on and on. And on. Oh - and on some more... All the way to Meryl singing The Winner Takes It All at Pierce Brosnan. At him, not to him. Meryl slips into some kind of method-acting madness as she delivers it - I'm guessing it's supposed to be the emotional highpoint of the piece. That's one way of putting it. Pierce looks at her with the tortured expression of a man who knows he's done a bad thing but if he stands still and says nothing, maybe nobody will notice.. Of course at that stage Pierce has already taken a shovel to SOS and the damage has all been done..
In fairness I like Pierce Brosnan and I enjoyed his doomed attempts at singing/shouting/grunting. At the best of times he can't really talk so expecting him to sing 'When All is Said and Done' is a bit much. I suppose it's predictable that I'd say the men come out of it far better than the women. They do, but that's not saying much. Colin Firth is Colin Firth except, I think, his character is gay. The film ends with him dancing in a rain shower with another man and they've both taken off their shirts. Definitely gay, so. Stellan Skarsgård tries his best to stay out of trouble until right at the end when Julie Walters decides she wants a bit of him and chases him around the room singing Take a Chance on Me. In the end Stellan gives in to Julie. But you get the impression that he's only doing it for a quiet life and he'll be on his boat and sailing as far away as possible come first light. We've all been there.
The woman, on the other hand, are just a shrieking mess.. Julie Walters is one of Meryl's mates and she does that annoying Julie Walters thing. You know the one.. I like Julie Walters but, God, she's annoying when she's on auto-pilot. And then there's Christine Baranski who, in fairness, can sing and can dance. The reason you know this is because while everyone else's song and dance scenes usually rapidly descend into some kind of schmozzle where everyone is falling on top of each other, with lots of cutaways to allow the actors to draw breath, Christine gets her own showpiece in the middle where she dances around the beach with a handsome, much younger chap who wants to 'carry on where they left off last night' Because she's so foxy, you see? He's dying for some more.. Seriously, have you seen Christine Baranski? She's a lovely woman, I'm sure and not unattractive in her day, but talk about an unlikely couple.. Anyway, she's very good at the old dancing and as they flew around the beach singing Does Your Mother Woman Know, I had to concede that at least she could sing so I could take my hands off my ears and enjoy her performance. Safe in the knowledge that Pierce and the girls would be back soon murder a few more classics..
Look, it's Mamma Mia. If you haven't seen it you probably don't want to.. If you have, you probably loved it. I didn't love it but I can't bring myself to say that I hated it either. As someone said, it's like going to your child's school play and realising that Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan are in your kid's class. And that nobody's in charge of anyone. It's cringey and hammy and really annoying at times but you know, it's not too long, the island looks nice and, most importantly, ABBA's songs are just indestructible. I mean, they've been subjected to some awful treatment at the hands of the cast but still they come out ok. A little bruised perhaps but they'll be fine!
Here's the best bits. You don't need anymore.
And then there was Deja Vu. So in 2006, Neil Young decides he's sick of the war, sick of George Bush and sick of waiting for someone younger to come along and write some protest songs and cause a bit of trouble. So he goes into the studio, knocks out a record of (it has to be said) fairly average songs including Living with War and Let's Impeach the President, and decides to tour with David Crosby, Graham Nash and Steven Stills to y'know promote peace or some shit..
They invite veteran reporter Mike Cerne, who served in Vietnam and reported from Iraq, along for the ride so that he can show us both sides of the argument as the band leave the comfort of the more liberal east coast and head towards the heartlands where the folks are quite happy with Bush and have no problem living with war. To its credit, the documentary doesn't shy away from showing the reaction of the crowd when CSNY start singing 'Let's Impeach The President' and encourage the audience to sing along. Needless to say there wasn't much peace, love or understanding in the room. It's all in there though and the protesters are given their opportunity to say what they think.. A nice bit of balance I suppose. Even if they're all a bunch of crazy gun-loving lunatics. Whoops - they're goes the balance!
It's a fascinating film. There's so much history between the band that their drama alone makes for a great story. Throw in the war footage and the accounts from various servicemen and women who've been in Iraq and it all adds up to a potent mixture. Sure, it loses its way in the second half but there's lots of ideas and opinions to take in and it's worth seeing if only for the moment when Steven Stills, who like David Crosby really isn't bearing up very well after 40 years of rock and roll, falls over on stage. He doesn't see the cables in all the light and tumbles over while the band play on. He just sits there playing - a bemused womble-like creature in a garish Hawaiian shirt.
Of course, being rock stars there's plenty of opportunity for them to muse on war and peace and generally spout hippie idealism.. At one point somebody talks about how once upon a time you expected to hear protest songs on the radio but now it's frowned upon to criticise governments. Would a song like Ohio get on the radio in 2008? Probably not. A good point for sure, and Neil Young's thoughts on whether a song can change anything suggest a bit of critical self-analysis. It turns out they can't but he's going to carry on anyway. Oh.
The only major clanger is when one of them (not sure which but I don't think it was Neil Young and Graham Nash hasn't lost his Manchester accent so let's assume it was Crosby or Stills) talks about how the band got together back when other guys their age were being sent to Vietnam. He says something along the lines of: "Y'know - it's crazy - we started at about the same time they were starting out and now 40 years later, we're all still going". Well maybe so lads, but I'm guessing the fellas in Vietnam have had a tougher time of getting through the last 40 years than CSNY ever did..
Still - it's a small complaint I suppose. There's nothing new in the film really and it doesn't come up with any new insights. It all boils down to - "War is hell, George Bush is bad but a lot of people are ok with it so what are you going to do?"
Sing and dance, I suppose.. It's what Meryl & Pierce would want..
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