When a girl living on a Greek island with her mother is about to get married, she finally seeks to find out who her father is. After stealing her mother’s diary, she narrows down the choice to three guys who all bedded her mother at the time of conception, and she invites them all to the wedding to see what happens and sing some Abba songs with them.
I partly agree with what Dr K says in that there is a certain fun in observing the drama at play: the spectacular moment when it is clear that Pierce Brosnan is about to start singing, and the audience members hold their breath and close their eyes to make the unavoidable go away through neglect, and then he does sing, and it is exactly as bad as one would have imagined. This makes watching the film a very personal experience for people how occasionally engage in Karaoke sessions, because all the cast members can sing exactly as well as yourself or your colleague. As the songs are indeed utterly unbreakable, having this identification experience in a group can be a joyful experience, because you can join in the hooting and shouting and claim to be on par in your skills with some of the world’s most … ex-Bonds. Meryl Streep can actually sing a bit, it turns out, so she is not as much fun, and the humour about her mid-aged girl-friends making the expected English women jokes about drinking and screwing is not too orginal.
It stunned me to see that hey let somebody direct this prestiguous production who does not have any film experience at all. And the lack of movie production skills shows, as the film never develops anything of interest that is beyond the beauty of the songs (if you like them) or the curiousness of the cast and having them sing.
Should be fun to have the sing-along version on a DVD or even in a cinema with plenty of scantily-dressed, drunk English women.
thomas4cinema 