Mamma Mia! - Spoiler Free

[akirlu]

I wonder how many other folks, even devoted ABBA fans, spotted the Benny Andersson cameo at the piano on the boat during the end of the "Dancing Queen" number?

And for all the griping about Pierce Brosnan's voice, or lack of same, I have to say that he made his way passably through "SOS". Where he really stank up the joint was doing "I Do, I Do, I Do," -- which yes, okay, did put one in mind of injured water buffalo -- but I would argue that it wasn't entirely his fault. It sounded very much like he was digging around in the very bottom of his range through the number, and with the original writer of the song on hand, surely someone could have managed to spot the problem and transpose the song into a more manageable key? Seems no more silly than circus bands playing in time to the dancing horses, instead of vice versa.

The other interesting choice was casting Donna and her pals so much older than written. Donna's generation should be in their early-to-mid forties, and are all played by women in their late fifties. Streep will be 60 next year. I am on the one hand glad that women of a certain age can get cast in that kind of role, and look fantastic playing them, but I do rather wonder if there aren't actresses (and actors) in their mid forties who could also sing and put on the spangled bell bottoms.

Comments

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

I know, the age thing really got to me as well and I AM a woman nearing 60, but also a devotee of the stage play. I loved Julie Walters myself, but then I'm a woman who would be running after Stellan instead of Brosnan or Colin Firth anyway.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

I spotted it! There were also occassions where they were clearly tableauxing the origiinal videos.

Yea, Brosnan not *that* bad, and I too couldn't quite make the ages work.

[karenthology.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure many actresses in their mid-40s are yet all right with playing somebody's mother. It seems to be, in today's youth-oriented Hollywood culture, to approximate the kiss of death.

I don't think it's out of line to cast someone in their late fifties. My mom was in her late 30s when she had me, and was in her sixties at my wedding. (Don't tell her I told you that.) :)

[bedii.livejournal.com]

circus bands playing in time to the dancing horses.

I SO did not need the mental image of Pierce Brosnan singing "Mr. Kite," thank you

[blufive.livejournal.com]

IIRC, I read somewhere that this was a personal pet project for Streep - which explains why she's there. Presumably the others were then cast to be of a similar age.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm 61 and my youngest is 17--even my oldest is only 25--so I don't think the age thing will bother me. In fact, the character of Donna has always seemed to me to be a kind of leftover counterculture person, and that would make the ages spot on.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

In the abstract, no, there's nothing wrong with casting a woman in her late fifties as the mother of a twenty-year-old, but in this particular case, given the details of her backstory, it just doesn't make any actual sense for Donna to have been 38 at the time that she got pregnant.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yes, I had wondered about that -- once you have one cast member in that age cohort, the rest of the casting pretty well has to follow.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's not a problem of possible fertility...it just doesn't work in the story, given the history of how and when Donna got pregnant. It also doesn't work for a child of counter-culture parents, and conceived in the counter culture era, to be only 20 now. Either the story cannot be set in the here and now, or else either Donna or Sophie is wildly the wrong age in the film.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

The fact that the actors are in their fifties doesn't mean, after all, that they are playing characters in their fifties. I've certainly seem women in their forties who "look" older than these actors do.

Is the identification of the actor's characteristics with the role something important to your viewing pleasure? I know it is to some people; it isn't at all to me.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Do we know that it's set in the here-and-now?

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

No, but your previous comment implied that you were assuming it.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

What? You expect me to be organized and rational? ;)

I guess I'm uncertain whether your objection to the casting is that these actors actually are in their fifties or that they are playing the parts as if the characters are that age. If the former, see my comment below. If the latter (I haven't seen the movie yet; I have seen this on stage), then yes, it probably doesn't work, timeline-wise.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

That works pretty well for me, because the kind of singing group Donna and her friends were, I associate with the 1970s. (I could be wrong.)

(And LOL to your second comment.)

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I don't see much point in differentiating between playing in their late fifties and just being in their late fifties when it is visually obvious that they are in their fifties. In the same way that no amount of "playing" "Japanese" will make Alec Guiness into an Asian male, and the casting now just makes me flinch no matter how much I try to suspend disbelief. Certain sorts of details just stick out glaringly, and catch me on a pre-rational level and I can't talk myself into believing them into the background again. My paradigm example of this problem is the original release of Bladerunner which I hated the first time I saw it because the replicant count was off, and Deckart wasn't *done* yet, so why was the film running into credits? Where was the final damned replicant?

I'm much better at making allowances when I see things on stage, because when watching a play, the audience is necessarily expected to contribute to the effect by imagining otherwise -- imagining rooms, armies, vistas, and so forth, that simply are not there. In contemporary cinema, there is no such bargain struck between film maker and audience.

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

The answer seems to be the stage musical debuted in 1999 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamma_Mia%21), and was written in 1997-98. If one imagines the original West End show, the audience is asked to believe Sophie was born in 1979, which is towards the end of ABBA's run.

So, basically, they're using a ten-year-old script that hasn't been updated.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Would you think these actors were in their late fifties if you didn't already know it? These days, the idea that a person "looks" a certain age is getting pretty shaky. (Despite the stereotype that young people think anyone older looks "old," my 17-year-old daughter's friends don't believe her when she tells them I am 61--"she doesn't look it!" But, following Steinem's lead, I tell them that this is what 60+ looks like--in this particular case.) On the "look younger" side, we have plastic surgery and better skin care; on the "look older" side we have smoking, sun exposure, and illness. And genetics both ways. I have a cousin a few months younger than I am whose face is full of lines, where I have few--but she's a "California girl" who spent endless hours in the sun over the years. And we have a cousin three years older than us, so middle 60s, who could pass for 50, or maybe younger, any day (if she wanted to, which she doesn't, being of my mindset).

On suspending disbelief: I've discussed this with other people; I seem to have much less of a problem with actors not "matching" their character than a lot of (maybe even most?) people do. (I'm quite sure this is related to my being comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity, my not needing to "believe" anything.) The most wonderful Hamlet I ever saw was a Korean American actor.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

As whumpdotcom points out below, the story being set in the late '90s makes sense.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Would you think these actors were in their late fifties if you didn't already know it?

Yes. In fact, I only found out their actual ages to verify my visual impression. I could not have told you Meryl Streep's age a week ago. (There are skin changes that you can't really fake away, especially in bright sunlight, especially around the neck and hands, but more generally as well.)

I also test as more than commonly able to discern fake from sincere smiles, so there may be ways in which I am just more particular in my observations than some.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

There's a difference between "makes sense" and actually verifying facts of the case, though, isn't there?

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, but I don't understand what you're getting at. I already knew when the first productions of it were mounted, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the story itself was set in that time.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I've taken an online "smile" test, but I couldn't find any place that it said what the average score was, so I have no idea how well I did against the average. Generally I'm very good at body language, but it's 99% subconscious--I almost never think about it, but just come up with conclusions that turn out to be correct. (My husband says he didn't believe in intuition--which I think is subconscious processing of information, experience, and observation--till he met me.)

But to me, this isn't a matter of observation; I know people in their 40s who "look" older than some other people of 60 or more, including their skin. If it occurred to me to think about Streep's character's skin (which it wouldn't), I'd just think, well she has lived on this sunny, windy island all these years, probably outdoors a lot.

To me, watching acting is a matter of suspending disbelief (easy for someone who doesn't believe in things!). I said in my LJ recently that my viewpoint is that if you say you're a woman, you're a woman; if you say you're a man, you're a man; if you say you're neither, tell me what pronoun to use. When I watch an actor, they are what they tell me they are.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Our mileage varies, both on what is a matter of observation, and what watching acting is about. But it must be convenient not to have to worry about the quality of simulation. It means you can enjoy everything, no matter how badly done.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I'm getting at is I don't see any point in your repeating what Bill said elsewhere since it doesn't add to, or even relate, to what Hal said, as if it were apposite in some way.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe not everything, but generally, you're right. J and I have a friend who, many years ago, would say, "It's not that bad, actually." This was often about food; though he knew top-notch food when he tasted it, he could appreciate a wide variety of lesser dishes. J says I have that approach to just about everything: "It's not that bad, actually." I sure seem to get a lot more enjoyment out of life than a lot of people do!

Simulation: How do you feel about the example I mentioned, of the Korean American actor (it was the sublime Randall Duk Kim) playing Hamlet? Or about color-blind casting in general? Or gender-blind?

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I've found that a lot of people don't read all the comments to a post, but respond to something that catches their fancy and then stay with that thread. (I've been known to do that myself.) I thought there was a chance Hal hadn't yet read Bill's comment, that's all; I was connecting two comments about the setting in the 1990s.

When the original production was mounted, the timeline worked: 1970s to 1990s. If the current film is presumed also to be set in the 1990s (as Bill provides some evidence for), the timeline still works (apart from any question of actors' ages).

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Simulation: How do you feel about the example I mentioned, of the Korean American actor (it was the sublime Randall Duk Kim) playing Hamlet? Or about color-blind casting in general? Or gender-blind?

I feel it falls under my comments about theater, supra.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

So all of those work for you in theater, and none work for you in film?

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I'm still way behind in the WashPost and last night I came across their short review of Mamma Mia:

Streep & Co. seem way too old to play people who were presumably in their 20s in 1979

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Hah! Glad I'm not the only one who thought so.