Movie review: Mamma Mia. Sorry, I didn’t like it.
Meryl Streep—what happened to you? A few weeks ago, I blogged my approval of La Streep, having just watched the early ’80s movie The French Lieutenant’s Wife. Those were doing her Dramatic & Beautiful Years. Now, apparently, she’s in her Goofy Years. There’s no other explanation for her acting in Mamma Mia, which I saw on TV the other night. I’d seen the B’way play, I knew what to expect, but I didn’t expect THAT. The famous British theater director Phillida Lloyd has a lot to explain about her direction of this over-the-top musical—no one looked or sounded good in this movie. And that definitely includes good ol’ Meryl striding around in overalls in much of the movie, barely able to sing the notes, and giggling and hamming it up big time.
Of course, you could ask: what else but giggling and hamming it up should one do if one is starring in an ABBA movie? Good question. Many a movie musical has giggling hams. But something about this particular “feel good” hit just didn’t work on me. In fact, I found it so bad that it crossed over into the vaunted Stinker Heaven category for me, which is aways good for a laugh. Just not the kind of laughs I think Phillida Lloyd probably had in mind.
I never did see Meryl in Julie & Julia. Now I’m afraid to…
