I Was Not Ready for ‘Mamma Mia!’ 10 Years Ago–Am I Today?

I know where I was exactly ten years ago today, because today is the 10th anniversary of a film that changed everything. Ten years ago today, I excitedly sat down in a movie theater and survived a true emotional rollercoaster, a movie that is still inescapable today. I’m talking about… The Dark Knight. Oh–and Mamma Mia! came out that exact same day, which makes today a big day for plenty of people who are as obsessed with musicals as I am with superheroes. But I’m not writing about The Dark Knight today, oh no. Instead, I finally watched the movie that opened up at #2 behind The Dark Knight. I was ten years late to the mask-wearing, wine-chugging, sun-kissed party, but I’ve finally watched Mamma Mia!

I realize that there’s retroactively a whole lot of symbolism surrounding July 18, 2008. Ten years ago, I was very newly out and not at all comfortable with being publicly gay (I was not out at my then job working for a comic book news magazine). That’s undoubtedly why Mamma Mia!, a movie that is so thoroughly gay despite being about the aftereffects of a whoooole lot of very straight sex, came and went without me noticing. Obviously I knew about Mamma Mia! as a thing in pop culture, but you could have told me it came out 15 or 5 years ago and I would have bought it. And while I definitely appreciated the fussy charm of Colin Firth’s face, voice, his everything ten years ago, I did not appreciate ABBA’s brand of earnest pop. A decade later, I’m even more into Firth (have you seen him in Kingsman: The Secret Service?) and I actually quite enjoy ABBA’s upbeat numbers (I’ve gayed it up to “Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)” many a time at Decider karaoke). Honestly, I think it took me until 2018, now that I fully appreciate ABBA and also being gay, to actually want to watch Mamma Mia! Also, like, in retrospect, The Dark Knight made a story about a rich boy with daddy issues who dresses up as a fetish bat and fights a sociopath who loves makeup hopelessly, joylessly straight. Forget that movie. Let’s talk about Mamma Mia!

Yes, let’s talk about Mamma Mia!–the movie whose aesthetic I can only describe as Wine Mom Chic. It’s a sarong in film form, backed with disco tracks. It’s the most elaborate and exclusive karaoke outing I’ve ever witnessed. You know what it’s like when the table next to yours suddenly shrieks with glee? That’s Mamma Mia! It’s a tourism video for Greece and also the soundstage that looks like Greece, starring Meryl Streep. If you don’t watch this movie through sunglasses while sipping an oversized fruity drink, you’re doing it wrong. It makes exactly as much sense as a movie based on a musical based on the music of ABBA should make. I mean, the TL;DR of it all is that I love ridiculous nonsense (I am Decider’s resident Fuller House expert) and Mamma Mia! is ridiculous nonsense (and that Fuller House mention is really going to pay off if you keep reading, don’t worry).

If you need a refresher, Mamma Mia! is about a 20-year-old girl’s plan to find out which of her mom’s three hook-ups is her real dad by inviting all three of them to her wedding without telling her mother. It’s also about her, her mother, and the three dad candidates (candidads? dadidates?) not figuring out the premise of the movie until after they’ve sang about a dozen ABBA songs! Oh yeah–and everyone sings ABBA songs as if they were their own personal confessions and proclamations, which I guess means that the music of ABBA does not exist in the Mamma Mia! movie-verse, much like the films of Meryl Streep and I guess half of Cybill.

Before I talk about my absolute favorite thing in Mamma Mia!, I will talk about the music, which I guess has to be my absolute favorite least favorite thing. The music of ABBA is unimpeachable. “Dancing Queen” is great, “Mamma Mia” deserves to have a musical and movie (and sequel!) named after it, “Gimme Gimme Gimme” has suddenly become my personal gay anthem, and “Take a Chance On Me” is undeniable. The music of ABBA is great enough to power multiple movies (shout out to 1994’s Muriel’s Wedding, another movie I have never seen). While watching Mamma Mia!, however, I encountered the one thing that can counteract the appeal of ABBA’s tunes: Pierce Brosnan’s voice.

It’s refreshing to learn that not everyone can be drop dead gorgeous and carry a tune. Brosnan is perfectly cast as the… American, English guy who owns bagpipes? Okay, I don’t know what’s up with Brosnan’s Sam, but I do know that he goes through the movie with 007’s swagger and his seafaring look involves a totally open and flowy button-up. Sam can get it and take it back to wherever that accent originated from. And then he opens his mouth. And… bless him. Bless him, he tries so hard, but he nearly wrecks “S.O.S.,” one of the greatest choruses in the history of music. And then he keeps trying hard, again and again, because even though he is without a doubt the worst singer in the movie, he keeps getting solos! I feel for him, because the exact same thing happened to me when I was cast as the song-filled Marryin’ Sam in Li’l Abner senior year, but I have to imagine the Mamma Mia! casting director had a bigger pool of talent to pull from than Smyrna High School.

Brosnan shares the Goshdarnit, You Tried award with the rest of the cast when it comes to singing. Everyone is, at best, fine. And you know what? That just adds to the movie’s charm. I learned through years and years of improv training that commitment is key. If you just believe fully in what you’re doing on stage, you’re 90% of the way to winning over the audience. And everyone in this movie acts like they love being in this movie, even if their time in the recording studio laying down those vocal tracks was probably yikes. I’ll take confidence over vocal talent, though, because From Justin to Kelly is all vocal talent and none of the confidence and it’s a disaster. Yes, I feel comfortable saying that Mamma Mia! is From Justin to Kelly done right. And who cares about singing when the dance numbers are as delightful as these? “Dancing Queen” alone was so epic it produced a work stoppage that definitely dented this tiny Greek isle’s economy.

Okay, I’ve talked about the music (one last thing: way too many ballads in a row in Act III)–now on to my favorite thing: COLIN FIRTH.

Here are excerpts directly from my notes, re: Colin Firth in Mamma Mia!:

• oh my god colin firth in a suit
• can we just with colin firth oh my god
• colin firth, is uptight
• my aesthetic is colin firth asking for a trouser press
• OH MY GOD ROCK AND ROLL FIRTH
• “Harry Headbanger” oh my loooord
• oh my god firth’s glasses please, boat yacht dad, short shorts.
• COLIN FIRTH’S PANTS, paisley
• if you’re approached by a wet colin firth, how do you say no to anything
• Wait — WHAT? Where did the gay content come from?? What’d I miss???
• GIVE ME GAY FIRTH DAMMIT
• OH MY GOD WET SHIRTLESS COLIN FIRTH HUGGING A MAN

That man, Colin Firth’s out-of-nowhere male lover, is played by Juan Pablo Di Pace–a.k.a. Kimmy Gibbler’s ex-husband on Fuller House! Also, his character on Fuller House? FERNANDO! THE MAJOR ABBA SONG NOT INCLUDED IN MAMMA MIA! IS “FERNANDO”! Di Pace’s character is named Petros, but whatever, he’s Fernando. I found the missing Fernando!!

Firth is a vision in this movie. Those suits, those short shorts, those sunglasses, those I-think-they’re-paisley pants–this might be his second-hottest movie (after Kingsman, seriously, watch Kingsman for the Firth alone). Just… thank you, Mamma Mia!, thank you.

One of the most does-it-for-me things in pop culture has to be stuffy English men doing something out of their comfort zone. Give me the adorable awkwardness, all of it, so you can imagine my utter swooning delight when Firth strutted out in a spandex disco jumpsuit, looking so squirmy but still going for it.

I might adore this movie?

I also have some burning questions about this movie. Like, just how soundstage-y is that soundstage? Did they greenscreen in blue skies behind the actors?! The bartender that stalks Christine Baranski: is he gay gay or super gay or what? Where does Julie Walters get off propositioning Stellan Skarsgard in front of everyone during her best friend’s wedding reception?! And when does this movie take place?! All of the flashbacks are clearly set somewhere between the late ’60s and late ’70s (Sam is in full Willie Nelson hippie garb, Harry is the silliest punk rocker ever), but it was released in 2008 and Amanda Seyfried says she’s 20? Or is it set when the musical was first staged in the late ’90s? But baby-faced Dominic Cooper says she’s working hard to get Donna’s villa “on the line.” Was he making her an Angelfire page in 1999? Speaking of Cooper, what trials and tribulations did he go through between 2008 and 2011 that aged him from a teeny baby man into the strapping Howard Stark?! Also, can we just–what was with “Voulez-Vous” number? Is Cooper a member of a masked band of marauders? Or were they a supergroup there to stop the women from tearing Stellan Skarsgard, the personification of “Dad Bod,” apart? If Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again doesn’t have more male delinquents in tiny shorts and masks and more middle-aged men tied to stakes, I’m not interested.

Oh, who am I kidding? I’m interested! I know Mamma Mia! won’t become my go-to “just put something on” option like it is for many of my peers (it’s very hard to steal that role from Golden Girls). But I do know that I’m kinda looking forward to seeing Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again in theaters, especially because Colin Firth only gets more dapper, more dashing, and more delightful with age, and also because I’m anticipating a full-blown Fuller House crossover when they finally use “Fernando.”

Where to stream Mamma Mia!