What is the message of Mamma Mia Here We Go Again?

This slick sequel delivers sharp one-liners, joyously contrived plot twists and an emotional punch that left our critic reeling…

Mark Kermode, Observer film critic

@KermodeMovie

Sun 22 Jul 2018 17.00 AEST

Watching the original Mamma Mia! in 2008, I had something approaching an out-of-body experience. Having initially scoffed at everything from the contrived join-the-pop songs plot to Pierce Brosnan’s unique vocal stylings, I felt my feathery inner self depart from my dour exterior and start dancing in the aisles. One minute I was a miserable critic; the next, everything had gone pink and fluffy. As I said at the time, never before had something so wrong felt so right.

A decade later, this sequel-prequel hybrid (a surprisingly smart combination) produces similarly head-spinning results. In the 1979 sequences, Lily James plays the young Donna, graduating from Oxford (via a High School Musical-style rendition of When I Kissed the Teacher) before heading off on an endless holiday wherein she will try on a pair of dungarees and a trio of handsome suitors. Meanwhile, in the present, Amanda Seyfried’s Sophie is striving to fulfil her mother’s vision (she had a dream!) with the newly renovated Hotel Bella Donna, while wrestling with the prospect of history repeating itself on this idyllic island.

The real pleasure comes from the sublime agony of hearing your favourite Abba tunes crowbarred into the narrative

As we flip-flop through the singalong hi-jinks, Hugh Skinner, Josh Dylan and Jeremy Irvine grow up to become Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård and Pierce Brosnan, while Jessica Keenan Wynn and Alexa Davies prove dab hands at essaying younger incarnations of dynamic duo Christine Baranski and Julie Walters.

Taking over the directorial reins, Ol Parker (who made Imagine Me & You and the underrated Now Is Good) delivers a slicker package than Phyllida Lloyd’s record-breaking original, full of elegant camera moves, snappy choreography and mirrored shots juxtaposing disparate frames, both temporal and spatial. Alongside Parker, the credited writers include Richard Curtis, who may or may not be responsible for such post-Four Weddings zingers as “Be still my beating vagina” and “It’s called karma and it’s pronounced ‘Ha!”’

Yet as before, the real pleasure comes from the sublime agony of hearing your favourite Abba tunes crowbarred into the narrative in increasingly preposterous ways. Occasionally the twists are subtle (the whoopingly affirmative “woh woh woh” of Waterloo briefly becomes a commanding “whoa” – as in “stop!” – during a restaurant seduction scene). More often they’re laugh-out-loud ludicrous (the scene in which Cher calls Andy Garcia’s Señor Cienfuegos by his first name evokes Ben Elton’s script for We Will Rock You). Crucially, such creaks appear to be entirely knowing, encouraging us to laugh with the story, rather than at it – something I’m not entirely sure was true of the original stage musical and film.

It helps that the ensemble cast are extremely likable and admirably game; the lyrics to Dancing Queen may insist that “you can dance, you can jive”, but the fact that many of the men can do neither of the above doesn’t stop them from having the time of their lives anyway. By contrast, the women are on top form – from Lily James, who could charm the birds from the trees with her song-and-dance skills, to Julie Walters, whose brand of note-perfect physical comedy (it’s all in the expressions and gestures) proves a reliable delight. Meanwhile, Omid Djalili is a scene-stealing hoot as a withering customs and passport control officer (NB: stay to the very end of the credits).

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None of this would mean a thing if Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again didn’t also pack an emotional punch, and I feel duty-bound to report that I came out of the screening an utter wreck. The tears started early, as James and co danced around a cameoing Björn Ulvaeus, then flowed freely as the hits continued, climaxing in a Dunkirk-style flotilla routine complete with a cheeky nod to Titanic, the film that the original Mamma Mia! famously outperformed at the UK box office.

Yet having always believed that Abba’s greatest song was a melancholy gem from the Arrival LP, it was the spine-tingling reworking of My Love, My Life that hit me hardest. I wasn’t just crying – I was convulsing with tears, desperately trying to stop myself from audibly sobbing. Seriously, the end of Apocalypse Now proved less traumatic.

Much has changed in the 10 years since Mamma Mia! challenged my ideas of “good” and “bad” film-making. I have certainly mellowed, and perhaps my critical faculties have withered and died. But I simply can’t imagine how Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again could be any better than it is. I loved it to pieces and I can’t wait to go again!

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