Dancing Queens

Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth. Sounds like the making of a hit, doesn't it? But add just one word and it skews that image slightly. Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth singing. Oh yes.

Musicals on film are notoriously tough to pull off. By their very nature the expressiveness and style of acting for a musical doesn't sit well with the understated style of acting we've become accustomed to on screen. But there's a knack to doing it: Hairspray managed it; Moulin Rouge managed it; Mamma-Mia, sadly, doesn't.

The film starts with Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) and her two pals excitedly jumping up and down like those girls in the Barbie ads before bursting into song. Sophie lives with mother Donna (Meryl Streep) on an idyllic Greek Island and is in middle of planning her wedding. After reading her mother's diary Sophie discovers she has three possible fathers and invites them all to attend the big day. The fathers (Pierce Brosnan. Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgaard) all turn up making for lots of drama and vast amounts of singing and dancing.

Seyfried's a good singer but acts like an overexcited schoolgirl. Even Meryl Streep seems ridiculously highly strung but she's an impressive singer and alongside Julie Walters and Christine Baranski performs the most entertaining numbers in the film. Everyone seems a bit nuts and after a while you get used to it and almost forget that this theatre-meets-cinema extravaganza is decidedly odd. But then Pierce Brosnan bursts into song and you remember.

There are moments of intentional humour: Streep and co doing Dancing Queen, which are both charming and entertaining. But these are interspersed with moments of unintentional humour: every time Pierce Brosnan opens his mouth.

This is director Philidda Lloyd's first feature film. She is primarily a theatre director and it shows. Great cast, sweet story and fun songs but this theatrical extravaganza belongs in the theatre, not in the cinema.