On stage, Mamma Mia! is a fun time—bright, colorful, and full of all the right songs, dances, and charades to send you away smiling. But as we all know, just because something is a hit on Broadway doesn't mean it will do quite as well in Hollywood. And when it comes to Mamma Mia!'s jump from stage to screen this year, it hits some places and misses others for an experience that is still fun but a little bit harder to fully embrace than its Broadway sister.
As always, a life full of singing and dancing does take a bit of getting used to. Dancing across the screen like a 21-year-old, Meryl Streep's Donna, while full of life, is a bit too much for me. Although I admire Pierce Brosnan for trying out something different, I just can't reconcile his standard action persona with his dreamy crooner, Sam Carmichael. But aside from Streep and Brosnan, the rest of Mamma Mia!'s cast is decidedly less awkward and much easier to stomach.
Amanda Seyfried proves that she is more than just a third place Mean Girl as the movie's youthful star Sophie. Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård play Sophie's other potential fathers, Harry and Bill, so well that I am reconsidering Firth's perpetual status as the perfect straight man. Donna's longtime friends Rosie and Tanya are brought to life by Julie Walters and Christine Baranski in a way that cannot help but make you want to shout, "You go girl!", every time they're on screen. And in general, the rest of the cast looks like they are having enough fun to mostly suspend the strange sense that it just isn't normal for entire crowds to spontaneously burst into song.
Then, there's the story. The perfect movie or show for a girls' night out, Mamma Mia! is a great story about mothers and daughters, best friends and girlfriends. Centered around the impending wedding of young Sophie, it's also about lovers and the love they share. Driven by Sophie's quest to find her father and the arrival of the three possible candidates, it is about fathers, daughters, and the value of knowing both where you're from and what your life has yielded. And tied up by reunions, reconciliations, and remembrances, it is about how amazing it is to share our lives with someone—even if we can do it all on our own.
Setting the story in motion and causing commotion from beginning to end is the question of who Sophie's father actually is.
"I feel like there's a part of me missing," Sophie tells her girlfriends. "And when I meet my dad, everything will fall into place.
"But as her mother sees it, he's never been there; so why should the identity of Sophie's father matter? "It's about knowing who I am," Sophie tells her fiancè Sky (Dominic Cooper).
But as he tells her, "That doesn't come from finding your father; it comes from finding yourself."
And in many ways, both Donna and Sky are right. If anyone in Sophie's life has contributed to who she is, it is her mother. When it comes to Sophie finding herself, it is first and foremost about herself. No matter how great a relationship any of us have with our mother, father, best friend, or high school sweetheart, at one point or another, we all learn that we must figure out who we are on our own before we can truly know who we are in relation to anyone else.
But, as the story unfolds, another truth also takes center stage. Almost every main character makes some discovery about themselves. They see what is lacking their lives. They embrace what they have shut out for so long. They pursue what they have been afraid to pursue. And as much as each person takes those steps on their own, it cannot be ignored that they each come to their decisions through their relationships with others.
For Sophie, there is no denying how much her mother means to her and how much their relationship has shaped who she has become. For many of the characters, the key to their forward movement is in seeing how much a potential love relationship means to them. And while Sophie's new path is one centered on independence, her time spent with her "fathers," the memories they share with her, and the wisdom they impart all play a part in the journey she begins at the movie's end.
For us, the same is true. Who we become is ultimately up to us. We are the only ones who can figure out who we are. The lives we lead are based on decisions only we can make. But the truth remains that we live in a world of relationships, in between people who have given pieces of themselves to us and people to whom we have given pieces of ourselves. And when it comes to knowing our father, I have to say: I wouldn't even begin to know or be who I am today if I didn't know who he was.
As much as I love him and appreciate all he has given me, I'm not talking about my dad who passed away 14 years ago; I'm talking about God. Even though I know my parents biologically created me, planned to have me, and probably love me more than most other people on this earth, the fact that God actually handpicked everything that is a part of who I am, created plans of purpose and worth for me and only me to fulfill, and loves me so much that there is nothing I could ever do to make him stop gives me a sense of value that I could find nowhere else. To know that I am a part of a web of purpose, connection, and relationship that is bigger than just me allows to me to believe that my small life still means something in this gigantic world. And as the cast of Mamma Mia! sings as they say goodbye, by being able to believe that my existence is actually part of a world that seems more like a fairytale or a dream, I have no doubt that I have been able to pursue my future and cross streams I never could have without that knowledge