Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again!

Well. When they announced the sequel, I was worried it would be some naff reunion, the old guard back with no new faces. Then Cher joined the cast. That’s a new face.

I was surprised at just what an emotional kick I got just seconds into the film, with Amanda Seyfried’s older (Hollywood older) Sophie back in her hotel on her island. I’m not a huge fan of the original which I’ve only properly watched as a cinematic piece of art once and have big problems with; I do admire it for Phyllida Lloyd’s gender politics, mind. However, since then, how many times have I seen clips, how many parodies have I watched, how often have I listened to the soundtrack, how many parties with the soundtrack have I been to? It’s become a feelgood classic, Pierce Brosnan’s singing has become a ubiquitous joke (albeit a well-spirited one), and that film’s naffness a touchstone. If it’s on TV, however far in, channel flipping, that’s my evening. We’ve since had Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan and theatrical genius David Bowie dabble in the genre, not to mention the Citizen Kane of jukebox musicals Sunshine on Leith, but when you say ‘jukebox musical’ people think of Mamma Mia, and when people think of Mamma Mia they smile. Over the last ten years, Mamma Mia has become no better a movie, but it’s become much, much bigger than a movie.

Here We Go Again is, too, much bigger than a movie – but it’s actually a bloody good movie too.

The genius of Mamma Mia is that it’s a Phyllida Lloyd joint and does to Hen Night entertainment what Lloyd did to Shakespeare. Yes, it’s just silly celeb karaoke, but to quote Skarsgård: “Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan and I were the bimbos. We weren’t expected to have an interior life, we were just to come in and be a little sexy and a little silly. So making Mamma Mia!, I understood how actresses normally feel.” As escapism goes, Abba karaoke’s great, but having James Bond, Mr Darcy and the Max von Sydow of his generation all still in love with, and sexually attracted to, a sexagenarian, and making (and showing) arses of themselves – there’s something subversive (for Hollywood) in there (Lloyd, of course, has form in reframing well-worn narratives to refocus on the female). The problem is, nothing’s at stake, it’s too happy-clappy, it’s objectively sh*te. “Slipping Through My Fingers” aside, by trying too hard to make sure you’re always grinning, it grates. Here We Go Again leaps over that first film’s great problem – there’s everything at stake here. In both new timelines, there’s greater love, more painful loss, and that ending that is just, completely, beautiful.

And, where Mamma Mia was a hen night directed by a stage Shakespearean, Here We Go Again is written by a rom-com maestro and directed by a cinema man – on screen it’s a proper movie with more fanciful choreography and camera work, and in the script, characters now get bigger, better backstories that pack, oh my god, so many emotional punches. Both Mamma Mia and Here We Go Again are karaoke parties and boy do I love karaoke parties, but Mamma Mia sacrificed stakes for slush, whilst Here We Go Again was unafraid to give pause for sadness, sentiment, sacrifice and, even, reality. It also uses “The Name of the Game” which is currently my fave Abba song. In my (un-air-conditioned) sold-out cinema, you could tell everyone was HUGELY enjoying it (no singing along, but sporadic applause for songs and some for Cher and LOTS at the end), but the silence between songs was the silence of people fully focused and fully invested. I think this film satisfies its target audience’s need to laugh AT what’s on screen (helloooo Colin Firth stop pretending you’re not enjoying every second), but because Curtis and co don’t mind letting heartbreak be heartbreak and loss be loss, this will stay with me a lot longer than the original did – we can both end on a megamix and end on a note of loss and closure and hope and Meryl and oh bugger it I’m crying again

But as I say, Mamma Mia is more than a movie – it’s a party to which everyone (EVERYONE – old, young, shy, outgoing, gay, straight, disabled, racially diverse, any body type – EVERYONE) is invited. And so is Mamma Mia: Here WE Go Again (to which, again, EVERYONE is invited). When we return to Sophie, to Sam, to young Donna, and very, very crucially NOT to Meryl, it’s perhaps like seeing how tall Dan and Rupert and Emma had gotten since the last film, or even more pertinently, recreating that romantic pang of returning to Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Where are they in their lives now, actually older as we all are? Sky and Sophie are together, having problems, but aw he still loves her! She’ll be a mother, exactly like her mother! Donna’s friends are still Sophie’s friends! Harry and Bill and Sam have become true fathers! Sophie’s grandmother’s forgiven her and found love and yeah this subplot would be ridiculously underdeveloped and makes no sense but oh my god it’s Cher! Sam’s doing “SOS” again badly, but so iconic-ly bad is the original (“When you’re gone” “WEN YAW GUN”) that it’s strangely Proustian hearing that tune in that voice, memories cascade… For all the praise rightly heaped on Lily James, and religiously heaped upon Cher, I think Seyfried is the film’s emotional centre by dealing with Sophie’s loss and adulthood with poise and realism, and Seyfried navigates that with a sudden sense of adulthood that first film didn’t need, but which Sophie now does and oh bugger it I’m crying again

Don’t get me wrong – it’s objectively sh*te. Sometimes we zoom from one hit to another hit after three lines of dialogue not because emotion demands it, but the soundtrack does. The three young fathers are totally underdeveloped except maybe Bill but he’s the eye candy; Donna’s also somewhat underdeveloped by her ‘world trip’ being “Oxford, Paris, sex, Greece, sex, wanderlust satiated” (this problem could have solved by making the film five minutes longer with years of Donna’s travelling life a montage under this). The visual style of “Waterloo” is from an entirely different movie, this was the only song I didn’t like. Like all jukebox musicals there’s awful clunkiness in introducing specific pre-existing emotional beats (though given the film embraced it, I wish they’d referred to Andy Garcia as Fernando throughout, just to string us along until…). And to be wholly detached, some killjoy can try and logically explain the timelines.

But here’s the thing. Like a hen night at a Nandos, Mamma Mia was objectively sh*te, but once you get into the party spirit who cares – and if you didn’t get into the party spirit (as Lloyd’s stagey production values made it occasionally hard to do) it was two hours of Abba Karaoke and where’s the fun in that oh wait that is my ideal Friday night. But whilst Here We Go Again was absolutely the party of the year (“Dancing Queen” with Colin Firth doing Titanic! Cher does “Fernando”!), compare the (equally jubilant) hotel party scene in Part I with Part II: Donna singing with the Dynamos got the party started, by being wish fulfilment and defying ageist Hollywood but just being a laugh really, whilst Sophie singing with the Dynamos (two of whom are still defying ageist Hollywood) got the party started, but by touching upon a deep emotional nerve ten years in the making it said something very sweet and surprisingly profound about family and loss and dreams and oh bugger it I’m crying again

Why see Mamma Mia 2 when I say I didn’t like Mamma Mia? Because I don’t like Mamma Mia as a film that much, but it’s become more than a film, a strangely iconic point in the sand – like the Harry Potter saga or the Pixar films, it’s a topic of conversation or a party theme or a way of life – and I love the legacy it’s left. And now Mamma Mia 2 is like Harry Potter 8 or Toy Story 3 – our inexplicable sentimentality returned to, aged and matured, paid off, chapter closed. My main issue with Mamma Mia was that its naffness felt over-egged and the lack of stakes too careful – but boy it is fun. Mamma Mia 2 is fun fun FUN, but more than that, it made me laugh and opened my heart and oh bugger it I’m crying again

P.S.