Mamma Mia! is unapologetically joyful, funny and entertaining but what many people don’t know is that it was a jukebox musical before it became a film. The theater production of the same name was based on ABBA’s music and directed by multi-award-winning British Director Phyllida Lloyd. She, Lloyd, has made a name for herself after working and directing many opera and theater plays and then as a film director with her directing debut film Mamma Mia!. Her best rated film is Herself  but without a doubt her most known film is Mamma Mia!. And let's be honest, who hasn’t seen Mamma Mia! by now?

Watching this film you won’t be able to stop smiling (maybe during Slipping Through My Fingers a tear or two might be shed) and if there is a thing that Lloyd has done perfectly in this film is giving voice to middle aged women as more than just the mother of the main character. In Mamma Mia! we can appreciate Donna (Meryl Streep) being just as silly and goofy with her best friends Tanya (Christine Baranski) and Rosie (Julie Walters) as you would expect from teenagers. These three are called the Dynamos. Tanya is a three time divorcee, Rosie is an unmarried best-selling author and Donna, who is the movie’s main character, is a self-achieved mother who has raised Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) all by herself, as her daughter’s father wasn’t present in their lives. Is this situation what triggers the film’s plot.

Sophie is getting married to Sky (Dominic Cooper) and she wants her unknown father in the wedding so after having found her mother’s diary, she reduces the number of men that could potentially be her dad to three. Those three are Sam Carmichael (Pierce Brosnan), Harry Bright (Colin Firth) and Bill Anderson (Stellan Skarsgård). She decides to invite them all to her wedding and try to discover who her father is without telling her mother or fiance. This unleashes a series of catastrophes such as Donna finding out that those three men are there, Sophie and Sky having their first argument… Sophie feels that she won’t know who she is until she knows who her father is but by the end of the film Sophie asks Donna, her mother, to walk her down the aisle showing that just because she didn’t have a father figure that didn’t mean she hadn’t been fully parented and that being a single mum is just as valid as any other type of parenting.  

The story is really simple but it is enough to entertain us and if you mix it up with ABBA’s amazing songs you get a great musical. Because who hasn’t sung “You are the dancing queen, Young and sweet, Only seventeen” from Dancing Queen at the top of their lungs while turning 17 or Mamma Mia or Money, Money, Money… If you love ABBA or have never heard of them, get ready for a really good time. Even though Brosnan is not the best singer, Meryl Streep nails it, she’s fantastic. And if you are ready to find out what wonders this film brings, as our cast would sing “You can dance, You can jive, Having the time of your life” just by watching this film.

And with all of this we are not saying that this film is perfect and it has no flaws because it does but Mamma Mia! was never supposed to be a serious or intellectual film, it’s a musical whose purpose is to bring happiness and silliness for a couple of hours. And to every Mamma Mia! hater out there we tell you to accept it for what it is and you’ll love it. It is harmless fun.