Mamma Mia

When I saw that a movie had been made of the ABBA-song-filled musical "Mamma Mia," I knew that it was only a matter of time before I saw it. There was just that air of inevitability about the whole project. And not that I wanted to see it or anything, but it was a task that fate would put in my way, so to speak, whether via going or via Netflix.

Forces conspired against me to see it. Ray loves musicals anyway, and once he heard me say I figured it was inevitable, he decided to make it inevitable. It helped that a couple of coworkers really liked it, one calling it "the feel-good movie of the year." But I think it was the hand of fate working itself through Ray that made the Mamma Mia movie trip happen more expeditiously than inexoriably, not Ray's own agency, though he definitely seemed to use agency as he scanned for movietimes.

So we settled into our seats at the cineplex, both of us shivering like crazy in the air-conditioned darkness. Clearly the air conditioning was cranked up for the key demographic of this movie, menopausal women, who indeed flanked us at every turn and did not seem to be cold at all. They also laughed at EVERYTHING except the sheer ridiculousness of Mamma Mia, which is what I laughed at.

Is there an actor in this movie who has not seen better times? Maybe Stellan Skarsgaard (or however you spell it), an actor I'd never heard of before, who is barely memorable as potential dad #3 and got to hang out in Greece for six weeks and get paid. Also, the blond scandinavian Skarsgaard was supposed to have had a Greek great-aunt. Shure. The other actor who made out like a bandit was the guy who plays the afroed bartender who comes on to Christine Baranski. He had the dazzled, "I'm finally in a movie!" look, with a hint of "This is only the beginning, and next movie maybe I won't have to be towel-diapered!"

The towel diapering was in a scene that made me wonder if the island of Kalikairi was actually a stand-in for Mykonos, so robustly dancing were the scantily-clad men.

This movie was not very post-colonial in that the main characters were all Northern European or American or anything but Greek. The greeks were all basically background color and if they were anything to the main characters they were the help. It takes Meryl Streep and her ladyfriends singing "Dancing Queen" to liberate the Greek island gals from their drab lives of hanging laundry and plucking chickens and holding ladders for handimen. The Greek women all follow their leaders, the white women of exuberant menopausality, the second-wave feminists of the '70s who have embraced Spice Girl-style "Girl Power" of the '90s in their late 50s, to the island's dock, where they do a little dance and prove how wackily independent they are by jumping in the ocean. Nothing says "good times" like jumping fully clothed into a body of water.

I also leaned over to Ray to let him know something all men should know: When women who haven't seen each other in a while and hung out in a tight group back in the day get together, they rarely have a chant or whatever that they have to start screaming out when they see each other. Yet that happened twice with two different groups of women in the movie. Egregious!

Look, it's a downer to say that grown ups should act like grown ups, but this was "High School Musical: The Pregnancy, the later years, etc."

It's also a downer to say that musicals should have to restrain themselves, especially ones that are as big a mess at this one. I mean, the single mom who doesn't need a man sings "Money Money Money"? The last song of the bachelorette party is the one-night-stand-barnstormer "Voullez Vous?" and the bride to be tells her man to dance with her mom? And she starts dancing with all the guys who could be her dad? Weird. It was like these messages slipped in amongst the "Middle aged women can be hyper" randomness.

Nothing wrong with hyper middle aged ladies. I'll probably be one someday. But it leaves me scratching my head, wondering why my mom, who is a serious cultural snob, liked Mamma Mia. She'll say that she can have fun, too, but she tends to over-intellectualize stuff, and I don't see her joining the Red Hat people anytime soon.

Something about this movie really hit the m-woman demo. I was completely unsurprised to see Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks had produced this thing, as they also did "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," another menopausal-people smash of cornball jokes and feel-good vibes and an over-the-hill (not by my standards, by society's) bride. Maybe there are subliminal messages? Maybe the future-meno-me heard and responded to them through the ads? I don't know.

Not that there is nothing to be gotten from Mamma Mia; Colin Firth's character is revealed as gay (a British prig with only dogs for companions — could they have telegraphed it any clearer?) and he picks up a much younger hot Greek guy for a little Socratic method/Spartan training/Colonial opression/pick your euphamism. When they dance shirtless together in a waterfall, you could hear the audience filing the visuals away for future reference. I don't care how homophobic you are, you WILL be turned on by shirtless Colin Firth and background character of sexual propness!

I warn you, the Mamma Mia hand of fate will have its way with you. We are all fate's playthings. She has chosen to mock us with cornball Swedes since they spawned the only hit ever to come out of the Eurovision song contest. Surrender.