Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

We chose this film to start the New Year as we thought that we'd need something cheerful after the end of the Christmas festivities - and we were right.

I'd not been too impressed with the original Mamma Mia! when we screened it as it was essentially a filmed version of the stage show - although the Abba songs made it bearable. However the genius of this film was to engage Richard Curtis to produce the screenplay: freed from the constraints of the stage show he was able to produce a superb screenplay that combined elements of both prequel and sequel, which also somehow managed to bounce off each other.

When you start looking at the smaller details the story becomes entirely implausible, but for the 114 minutes of its screen time it isgreat fun.

Here are my notes:

UK 2018          114 minutes

Director:          Ol Parker

Starring:            Lily James, Amanda Seyfried, Meryl Streep and Cher

“Watching the original Mamma Mia! in 2008, I had something approaching an out-of-body experience. One minute I was a miserable critic; the next, everything had gone pink and fluffy. As I said at the time, never before had something so wrong felt so right. A decade later, this sequel-prequel hybrid (a surprisingly smart combination) produces similarly head-spinning results.”

Mark Kermode

Ten years after the events of Mamma Mia! The Movie Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is pregnant and will have to take risks in order to reopen the hotel that her mother Donna (Meryl Streep) had started. Meanwhile in a series of flashbacks the young Donna (Lily James) graduates from Oxford and sets off on a tour of Europe that will end up in Kalokairi where she decides to open a hotel.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a film that broke many box office records must be in search of a sequel, although in this case the search took ten years to reach the screen, although the chronological gap has allowed some significant events to have affected many of the main characters and to provide enough of a story to carry a further selection of ABBA songs (with Bjoern Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson having cameo roles in two of the musical numbers). The screenplay is by director Ol Parker (who had previously written The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) and both wrote and directed its sequel) from a story by Richard Curtis (writer of Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Notting Hill (1999) and Love Actually (2003)) using characters created by Catherine Johnson for the original stage musical.

Clearly the extensive flashback sections of the screenplay need to be consistent with Donna’s back story about Sophie’s paternity from the initial film, but by setting the opening sequences at an Oxford graduation ceremony the screenplay firmly establishes Donna as an inhabitant of Richard Curtis’s rose-tinted version of England that provided the background to his film world. However in the sequences set in the present day the recent economic problems of Greece appear momentarily, albeit only as a plot device to bring most of the cast together at the reopened hotel for the final section of the film (although inevitably Cher flies in by helicopter).

The film enjoyed far more critical acclaim than its predecessor, with Mark Kermode giving it a five star review and commenting:

“Much has changed in the 10 years since Mamma Mia! challenged my ideas of “good” and “bad” film-making. I have certainly mellowed, and perhaps my critical faculties have withered and died. But I simply can’t imagine how Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again could be any better than it is. I loved it to pieces and I can’t wait to go again!”

On its release in the UK the film grossed $12.7 million on its opening weekend, making it the fourth biggest opening for a film in 2018. It was a global success, repeating the performance of its predecessor in Australia and Germany while also being successful in France, Poland, Switzerland and Croatia (where its location scenes were filmed). To date the film has a total gross of $393.7 million against a production budget of $75 million. 

Here's the trailer:

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

This is our last screening before Christmas.  I've not had a chance to read the book or to see the film so my notes - of necessity - are somewhat briefer than usual.  Hopefully they will provide enough of an incentive to bring in an audience.

 

Here are my notes:

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

UK 2011                      112minutes

Director:                      Lasse Halstrom

Starring:                        Amr Waked, Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor, Kristin Scott Thomas and Rachael Stirling

 

“Salmon Fishing in the Yemen has a similarly soft-tummied feel to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel; it’s perhaps best described as a second-tier Ealing Comedy shot by the Boden catalogue.”

Robbie Collins

 

Dr Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor), a salmon expert in the British fisheries is engaged by Sheikh Muhammed (Amr Waked) to introduce 10,000 salmon into a river in the Yemen so that he can go fly fishing in his own country.  Jones sets to work with Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt) a management consultant employed by the Sheikh, and as the project progresses they become emotionally entangled.

The screenplay by Simon Beaufoy is based on the debut novel by Paul Torday which was an unexpected best-seller in the UK.  However Beaufoy, who also wrote the scripts for The Full Monty (1997) and Slumdog Millionaire (2008) loses the eccentricity of the source novel and refashions the central relationship into one familiar from other romantic comedies: it is clear from their first meeting what is destined to happen between Jones and Chetwode-Talbot.

Director Lasse Halstrom made his international name with My Life as a Dog (1985), made in his native Sweden, although prior to that he had directed more than 30 music videos for the pop group ABBA.  Following the success of My Life as a Dog Halstrom has worked in the US where his films have included The Cider House Rules (1999), from the novel by John Irving and Chocolat (2000) from the novel by Joanne Harris; both of these films received Oscar nominations for Best Film.  His next film is a thriller called The Hypnotist which is to be made in Sweden.

 

Here's the trailer: