Let’s get this out of the way right up front: ABBA records were my first music purchases, the soundtrack of my pre-teenage years. I have always liked their song-smithing. They knew how to put a catchy joyful or mournful tune together. Always, always memorable. When ‘Dancing Queen’ hits the turntable, I am straight up onto the dance floor leading the Daddy-dancing!
And this is at the heart of the success of these two movies. You know and are caught up in the catchiness of the melodies and arrangements, and surprised anew at the depth of the lyrics as they are used in a context surely never envisaged when first committed to paper. And, of course, it does not hurt to locate the action on a beautiful, sun-dappled island, the type of holiday destination for which many of us pine. Both are therefore the ‘feel good’ movie of the summer. However, beware, because ‘Here We Go Again’ is a ‘feel sad’ movie in equal measure.
These movies are not subtle. You either accept their contrived conventions and go with them totally, or they are just not for you. Generous slices of ham and huge portions of cheese.
The cast seems to have had as much fun making the movies as we are watching them. Pierce Brosnan only realised he had not quite thought through being in the film properly the night before he was due to film his first singing. However, like his fellow thesps, he emits a joyful energy throughout the movies. The Dads said they felt like a modern Andrews Sisters as they bonded at the first recording session in fear of singing on-screen. Christine Baranski certainly looks like she is having the time of her life vamping it up as the cougar on the beach. The flotilla sequence in the second outing epitomises the bubbly vibrancy of the franchise; the arch ‘Titanic’ reference provides the cherry on top.
Whereas in the first movie you feel that the audience initially has to be won over to the slight plot devices used to get in another song, in the second movie you almost sense the writers winking at you as they create another corny segue to another ABBA track, seeking you to encourage them to see how far they will stretch the story’s logic to introduce another lyric. The excuse to shoehorn in ‘Fernando’ in ‘Here We Go Again’ (for me the worst example of this contrivance) is still painful upon reflection, but laughably forgivable because we know and cheerfully accept the conventions to which these two films adhere.
In both films, it is Donna who is the song and dance star; in Mamma1 Streep magnificently confirming everything we already know about her brilliance, Lily James cementing her rise to the next big thing when we go again. James is a canny piece of casting - it is easy to believe that she grows into her older Streep incarnation, and like her ‘older self’, she sure can sing.
Yet, these are ensemble pieces. Amanda Seyfried makes a strong impression when relatively unknown and again 10 years later. Her poignant final duet in Mamma2 with a cleverly delayed character appearance brought tears to my eyes, and was all the more poignant knowing Seyfried had not long before given birth to her first child. In number 2, Seyfried and Dominic Cooper share a duet that (deliberately?) echoes that of the ‘SOS’ pairing of Streep and Brosnan of episode 1 whilst cleverly juxtaposing the young geographically-divided couple in a single physical space. Baranski and especially Julie Walters demonstrate great comic timing, coming more to the fore in their own right in the prequel-sequel. Indeed, Baranski has probably the two best comic lines in a film better in the dialogue department for the involvement of Richard Curtis. Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard also manage to carve out some superficial characterisation despite the pace of the stories. And Brosnan... he was panned for his singing in the first film (I think he had rather perfected a vocal that is reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen at his very cardboard-chewing best), but has one of the best and most emotionally-charged vocal moments in the latter film as he gives a different take on the ‘SOS’ track he duetted in the earlier effort. Benny and Bjorn turn up in cameo parts here and there as the films again invite their audience to smile conspiratorially.
The decision to go with a prequel-sequel storyline works surprisingly well as we see how Donna arrived at the island. There is plenty of scope to enrich the bare description of the events previously narrated from Donna’s diary by Sophie - although, there are one or two revisionist moments of licence here and there that may trouble the viewer wanting a perfectly-knitted narrative arc. Ol Parker’s direction of the second effort is understandably more accomplished than Phyllida Lloyd’s handling of her screen debut. This, plus given it is an original screenplay, means that there are less of the awkward moments translated clumsily from the stage to screen, such as watching Streep sing to Brosnan as he scratches his chin for four and a half minutes. And... if only Sofia had not spoken to young Sam as she had (I still cannot forgive her) when he returned from disengaging himself from his commitments at home, what a different story we may have had...
I suspect that, when all is said and done, both films will be viewed in our household again and again. Testimony to their success is my overwhelming desire to download the entire ABBA catalogue for repeated listening; ‘Thank you for the music’.