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'Mamma Mia': Just plain good fun, says film reviewer
Christine Powley. Photo supplied.
Here we go again. The hugely successful ABBA musical has
been revised for the silver screen, and the high school comedy
makes an underwhelming comeback.
> Mamma Mia!
Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Starring: Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan
Skarsgard, Julie Walters, Christine Baranski, Dominic Cooper,
Amanda Seyfriend
Rating: (PG)
5 stars (out of 5)
Review by Christine Powley
When I heard someone had bunged a whole lot of ABBA tunes
together to make a stage musical, I thought it was a nutty
idea.
Although ABBA were constantly on the radio as I grew up I was
far too hip to like them, and their lasting appeal always
passed me by.
Well, call me dim-witted and slow to catch on, because the
film version of Mamma Mia! (Rialto and Hoyts) has
finally revealed to me the point of ABBA.
They are just plain good fun.
Meryl Streep stars in Mamma Mia! as Donna, a woman who
had a magical summer in the Greek Islands with three
different boyfriends, Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Harry (Colin
Firth) and Bill (Stellan Skarsgard).
The magic leaves when she is literally left holding the baby.
Twenty years on, that baby, Sophie (Amanda Seyfriend), is
about to get married and she wants the mystery of her father
solved.
With a great lack of forward planning, she sends each of her
possible fathers an invitation to the wedding.
Donna is horrified when they arrive and much singing and high
jinks ensue.
It really should not be so, but amazingly, ABBA lyrics turn
out to be exactly what everyone wants and needs to say.
Streep was on television promoting the movie and she was at
pains to point out that Mamma Mia! was shot on a
limited budget but that has worked to its advantage.
There is an ad hoc quality to the dance numbers that give
them a layer of meaning that would be absent if they were
just another musical extravaganza.
While this is definitely Streep's movie, she gets able
support from best friends Rosie (Julie Walters) and Tanya
(Christine Baranski).
Her leading man, Brosnan, cannot sing but he puts so much
heart into it you have to forgive him.
Mamma Mia! is the most fun I have had in a movie for
ages and you definitely have to stay until the end of the
credits.
The only cautionary note is that most men just will not get
it.
>Charlie Bartlett
Director: Jon Poll
Starring: Anton Yelchin, Robert Downey Jr, Hope Davis, Kat
Dennings, Tyler Hilton, Mark Rendall.
Rating: (M)
3 stars (out of 5)
Review by Mark Orton
The high-school comedy has been a little bit absent in recent
times.
The traditional home of pimply problems, Hollywood, has been
sketchy at best with follow-ups to critically successful
films like Election, Rushmore or even Ferris
Bueller's Day Off.
Unfortunately, school corridors have fast become synonymous
with bullets and blood.
America is in dire need of a teen hero who doesn't need to
pack heat on the way to class.
Stand up, Charlie Bartlett.
Smart, educated, immaculately groomed and universally liked
(well, sort of), Charlie (Anton Yelchin) is the poster child
for a new breed of student . . . the psychiatrist.
Charlie is an only son.
His society family consists of just him and his hilariously
infantile mother Marilyn (Hope Davis).
Thrown out of numerous private schools, Charlie isn't your
typical thug; he just can't avoid dabbling in dodgy
entrepreneurial schemes.
On his last chance at public school, Charlie's talents,
insecurities, and screwed-up family issues come to the fore
all at the same time.
Prescribed Ritalin by a personal shrink, Charlie senses the
opportunity to make good with his new classmates.
Stocked to the hilt with a colourful assortment of
pharmaceuticals, Charlie Bartlett has a meteoric rise
in popularity that steers the film into the murky waters of a
chemically-dependent society.
Hope Davis revels in her quirky role.
Kat Dennings is both sassy and mature as Charlie's girlfriend
Susan, and Anton Yelchin belies his baby face to deliver an
incredibly complex character, with panache.
The icing on the cake should be Robert Downey Jr as troubled
principal Gardner.
Guzzling alcohol with abandon, Downey Jr seems content to
perform a typecast version of his former self.
Brief glimpses of class do not disguise the sense of boredom
that Downey Jr seems to have for the role.
Maybe he's just not comfortable as an authority figure yet.
The team behind Charlie Bartlett will be at pains to
stress that this is a drama and yes, that is true.
However, the drama isn't nearly as good as the black comedy.
Charlie Bartlett had the potential to be another
Napoleon Dynamite, but a moralising message got in the
way.
