Thank you for the music...

If you love the music of ABBA you will enjoy Mamma Mia! I grew up listening to ABBA and remember the times when my uncle in Mangalore would pull out his old gramophone records (these was the early 80s people!) and put on some English music for us. It was a big event - he would pull out the gramophone player from under his bed (us kids were not allowed to touch it) and browse through his collection of gramophone records and the anticipation would build while we decided what music to play - the staples were ABBA, Boney M and other awesome 70s music. Now and then I will hear a song which I recognize from my summers in Managalore all those years ago :)

So coming back to the movie - its about a young girl, played by Amanda Seyfried, about to be married, who doesn't know who her father is - there are 3 suspects (Pierce Brosnan - still as hot as ever, Colin Firth - who may be losing his hotness a little bit and Stellan Skarsgard - for me, he's one of those guys you've seen in movies and know his face but not his name - now, thanks to this blog I researched it) and since she doesn't know who it is, she invites all 3 to her wedding. Meryl Streep plays her free-spirited mom - and I must admit, it was kind of strange to see Meryl Streep frolicking on the beach and uncharacteristically (for her at least) singing ABBA songs. Ditto for Pierce Brosnan (I mean, imagine James Bond singing the song SOS - not exactly a perfect fit but that's why it's called acting I suppose - though he did do a decent job with it).

The movie is an out and out musical - which is the whole point of having ABBA peppered throughout the movie (I'm not sure that I have the patience to sit through a musical these days though - so I was glad to have my packing to do while the movie played in the background). The film has a very theatrical feel to it probably since it was conceived as a Broadway play. The locales are gorgeous. Amanda Seyfried has a lovely voice. It's a decent watch if you're a fan of ABBA - if not, consider this fair warning - you will not like this movie.

With that, I am off to put on some ABBA on my ipod and hum along to "There was something in the air that night".