Friday was a tough day here. I had to bake in the sun for an hour in order to catch the 2:45 showing of The Dark Knight all because Warner Brothers wouldn’t put me on their press list. Then, moments after I emerged into the light, lest the naysayers prove me wrong, I had to run around the corner and catch the opening of the above-referenced “chick flick” to personally insure that it had the opening weekend it deserved. Now I wondered why the studios were opening this film the same weekend as THE BIGGEST FILM ON THE PLANET. Was it truly a counter programming strategy as some have argued? If counter programming means that ladies of a certain persuasion will go see the strapping beefcake on display in these superhero movies PLUS girls having a good time on a greek island with more beefcake displays, I guess the answer is yes. Studios, PR people, whoever is listening...call it something else please.

Yes, there were tons of women at that Batman film. I mean everyone, obviously not just 18-35 y.o. males, has gone to see it. It’s got plenty of girl appeal, art house cred (aka real actors like Ledger, Bale, Caine etc.) and that suit! Now at my showing of Mamma Mia! it seemed like only people there were either those who didn’t have the energy to stand in the Batline on the first day (but you know they’ll see it in a couple of weeks when all the hoopla dies down) and “professionals” and/or geeks who had already been to the movies once that day. So why go? Especially after you’ve already seen the Bat movie 3 times?
First of all, it’s on a Greek Island, so all you need to do is sit back, relax and you’ll feel like you’re on vacation. There are plenty of young beautiful people, in fact a whole ensemble of scantily clad girls and boys frolicking about the beach. But then there are the grownups, and if you’re going to so called “counterprogram” for the ladies what better choice than the original Remington Steele, Pierce Brosnan, singing no less.

So here’s the story. Donna (Meryl Streep) who runs a sort of bourgeois bohemian style B&B had an affair 20 years ago with three men who all might be the father of her daughter Sophie. Sophie’s getting married so Donna’s 2 best friends show up which turns out to be just an excuse to have Julie Walters and Christine Baranksi ham it up as the goofball and sex kitty respectively. Sophie has secretly found the names of the possible dads in her mom’s diary and has invited them...antics ensue and you can guess the rest. If it sounds like that old miniseries with Phoebe Cates Lace (or was it Lace II) it isn’t. Like I said it’s FUN.

That’s because it’s really all about ABBA. If you don’t know who they are, just stop reading this right now because you 1) won’t like the movie and 2) live in a cave too far from any movie theater showing it. Now the best ABBA movie of all time (and one of my all time, top 25 favorites) is Muriel’s Wedding, the movie that gave the world both Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths. I was sort of expecting that sort of ABBA experience, blasting soundtrack and lip synching. Not to be. It’s real singers of variable abilities (Colin Firth, a singer who knew?) to (Pierce - thank god he’s gorgeous.) It’s a musical so everyone’s breaking into appropriately relevant songs like Dancing Queenn when they reminisce about the old party days and I Do, I Do at the wedding. There’s even a bonus number at the end with everyone decked out in platforms and bell bottoms for a hilarious rendering of Waterloo.
My take: everyone just had a blast filming on the Greek Isles so why shouldn’t we watching it. So much for counter programming.

Directed by Phyllidia Lloyd; written by Catherine Johnson; Director of Photography, Haris Zambarloukos; music by Stig Anderson, Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, and Maria Djurkovic; produced by Judy Craymer and Gary Goetzman. Released by Universal Pictures. Running time: 108 minutes..

With: Meryl Streep (Donna), Amanda Seyfried (Sophie), Julie Walters (Rosie), Christine Baranksi (Tanya), Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Stellan Skarsgaard (Bill), and Colin Firth (Harry).