Review: Mama Mia! Here We Go Again (2018)

* * *
Director: Ol Parker
Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Lily James, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgard, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters

The Mama Mia movies are the sort of works that force you to examine your own taste in art. In a purely objective sense, you're aware that they're not "good" and that, in fact, they don't even really come close to the normal standard of what makes a movie good. They are, if you are being brutally honest with yourself, barely movies at all in any traditional sense. Their narratives are thin as air, existing merely to connect a series of songs to each other, not always accomplishing that in the most elegant of ways. And yet. Isn't the aim of art to stir something in the audience, to touch some emotion and heighten it through the experience of consuming it? If the goal of the work is to bring the audience joy and it succeeds in doing so then isn't it, by definition, a "success" even if it does so in a fashion that might generously be described as "clumsy." This is all a round about way of saying that Mama Mia! Here We Go Again is as terrible and wonderful as the first film and I loved every minute of it.

Review: While We're Young (2015)

* * *
Director: Noah Baumbach
Starring: Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver, Amanda Seyfried

Youth is wasted on the young, but in the case of Noah Baumbach's While We're Young, it is also wasted on the middle-aged. Though it's being marketed as a somewhat raucous generational comedy, as if it's a gentler and less raunchy version of Neighbors, no one should go into While We're Young expecting a laugh-a-minute movie. It has some lines and moments that are very trailer friendly and it is a funny movie, but it's funny in that sharp, find the humor in tragedy and the tragedy in humor sort of way that is typical of Baumbach's work - this may be more conventional and broadly appealing than the filmmaker's previous films, but it's still Baumbach. Featuring a couple of great performances at its core, While We're Young is a strong effort, even if it deflates a bit in its final act.

Review: The Big Wedding (2013)

* 1/2
Director: Justin Zackham
Starring: Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, Susan Sarandon, Amanda Seyfried

Don’t RSVP. That joke probably seems easy, but I assure you that it’s funnier than about half the supposed laugh lines in The Big Wedding, a largely hollow enterprise with gender, sexual, and racial politics that would have seemed quaintly out of date when Stanley Kramer was still at his well-meaning best, and seem utterly alien today. I’m guessing that the cast is the only reason this thing wasn’t relegated to straight-to-DVD purgatory, but agreeing to appear in this clunker doesn’t exactly bode well for the state of any of their careers.

Canadian Film Review: Chloe (2010)

* * *
Director: Atom Egoyan
Starring: Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson

Uh... the hell?

From its first moments Atom Egoyan’s Chloe foregrounds the theme of masquerade. In a voice over the title character, played with aplomb by Amanda Seyfried, informs us that she’s capable of becoming anyone, of becoming exactly the person that a given situation requires. In hindsight the end of the film is spelled out in the beginning, but I have to admit that while watching it, it threw me for a loop. I guess there’s a degree to which that’s to the film’s credit, even though I think the ending is ultimately the weakest part of this whole endeavour.

From Chloe the film then moves to Catherine (Julianne Moore), a Toronto gynaecologist experiencing midlife anxieties. When her husband, David (Liam Neeson), misses his flight home and she later finds a photograph that may be innocuous but may also be incriminating on his phone, she becomes convinced that he’s sleeping around. After a brief run-in with Chloe in a restaurant, Catherine pursues her, wanting to hire her to test David’s fidelity. All she wants, she insists, is to know what David would do if approached by Chloe, but when she meets with Chloe later to find out how it went, she decides that the situation needs further testing. And then further testing. And then...

Given the number of articles about the film I’ve read in the last couple of days in which the word “lesbian” is part of the headline, I suppose it’s no secret that Catherine herself becomes sexually involved with Chloe. The scene itself is rather explicit but in no way exploitative; the way that it comes about is natural to the psychosexual themes that Egoyan is exploring. The story is all about Catherine’s feelings of being disconnected from her own sexuality and Chloe – who tells us at the beginning that she’s more symbol than person – represents both her current feelings of being sexually obsolete and her memory of her own once powerful sensuality. Her relationship with Chloe is less about any kind of sexual attraction to Chloe specifically than to the feeling of revitalization she gets from living vicariously through her. The stories that Chloe tells her, which seem to give her a particularly strong charge, serve to illuminate a connection to David that she herself has lost sight of; when she initiates sex with Chloe, she does so by asking for a demonstration of how David touches her. To her this isn't her having sex with Chloe, but her playing the role of David having sex with Catherine, played by Chloe. The film’s treatment of these murky waters is fascinating and makes it worth seeing even if it does (and I honestly can’t emphasize this enough) fly totally off the rails in its final ten or fifteen minutes.

Whatever weaknesses Chloe might have, no blame can be laid on the actors. Moore renders an effectively contained performance as a woman who sees sex in purely clinical terms and only reluctantly (and perhaps never fully) opens herself up to the possibilities of sensuality. She's a very cold character in terms of how she deals with others and quite possibly the most brutal figure in the whole the story (I'm still undecided about how I feel about the final shot: is it a tribute inspired by guilt, or is it a callous expression of triumph?). It's interesting to watch her play this very closed off character opposite Seyfried, whose Chloe is open to the point that her entire personality is dependent on the person with whom she's interacting. Seyfried has a tough job in this movie because the closer the story gets to the end, the more unbelievable her character should become, yet she makes you believe in Chloe. In her first interactions with Catherine, she hints at the things to come but manages to pull back just enough that she's never overplaying her hand and giving everything away. By the end of the film you should probably hate Chloe, but I actually found her to be the most sympathetic character, which I think is a testament to what Seyfried is able to accomplish with the role.

Many of the themes explored in Chloe are familiar from Egoyan's previous films. He's a filmmaker preoccupied with the psychology of sexuality and here focuses on voyeurism and what I suppose you could term sexual surrogacy. Much of what he does with this film is very interesting, though it must be conceded that when it comes to visually expressing the story's themes, he sometimes uses a mallet when a hammer would be sufficient. Nevertheless, what works in Chloe works very well. What doesn't work may leave you a bit baffled and results in a film that is uneven at best, but still one that I would recommend, albeit by a narrow margin.

Review: Mean Girls (2004)

* * * 1/2
Director: Mark Waters
Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, Lacey Chabert, Tina Fey

I was well out of high school by the time Mean Girls hit theatres, but the fact that so much of it still rang true speaks to how little things actually change even as things are changing. The accessories are different (I sure as hell didn’t have a cell phone when I was in high school), but the games are the same, and are explored here in a way that effectively combines the real and the satirical. So, if you have yet to experience this gem of a movie, I have but one thing to say: Boo, you whore!

Mean Girls was made during that ever so brief period of time between “Lindsay Lohan, child star” and “Lindsay Lohan, tabloid train wreck” and finds her playing Cady, the daughter of two researchers who has spent most of her life being home-schooled and living in Africa. When her mother (Ana Gasteyer, good but underused here) gets a tenured position at a university, the family is uprooted and Cady is thrust into the hazardous world of high school. She quickly becomes friends with outcasts Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damien (Daniel Franzese), and then finds herself adopted by the Plastics, the trio of Barbie-esque girls who rule the school. With Janis’ encouragement, Cady becomes a mole, helping plot to destroy the Plastics from the inside out. The only problem is that before she knows it, Cady has become one of them.

I think it’s safe to say that writer/co-star Tina Fey has, at the very least, a passing familiarity with Heathers, as that titular clique echoes pretty soundly in the Plastics. Watching the two films back to back, it seems to me that Mean Girls succeeds where Heathers fails, because the latter focuses so much energy on trying to shock you. While Mean Girls does descend occasionally into the surreal, as when Cady likens her classmates to animals in Africa, there’s an overriding sense of realism to the story as a whole. Horrifying as it may be to think, people like Regina George (Rachel McAdams) do exist and would effortlessly attract lackeys such as Gretchen (Lacey Chabert) and Karen (Amanda Seyfried).

I would argue that the strongest aspect of this film is its script, which understands teenage psychology well enough to take it seriously even as it is ripping it to shreds and taking careful aim at a few different targets. There’s the obvious target of high school friend/enemy dynamics, the dubious “reclaiming” of words like “bitch” and “whore” by girls who use them as terms of endearment, and a broad lampooning of parents who gladly undermine their authority as parents in order to be their kid’s friend (“I’m not a regular mom. I’m a cool mom!”). The acting is strong, too, particularly from McAdams. There is absolutely no good reason why you should ever feel sorry for Regina (well, okay, maybe when she gets hit by the bus), but personally I always do find myself feeling kind of sorry for her when she’s exiled from the Plastics’ table in the lunchroom. The way that McAdams manages to make that moment work and give it some depth never ceases to amaze me.

While I have a lot of love for this movie, I’ve got to acknowledge that it does have its flaws. The ending is a little preachy, giving a definite sense of a lesson being learned and these scenes don’t really fit seamlessly with the rest of the film. However, even they have their moments (“Do you even go to this school?” “I just have a lot of feelings.”).

Review: Mama Mia! (2008)

* * *
Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Starring: Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried

Objectively speaking, I know that Mama Mia! isn’t a good movie by any normal measure of what makes a movie good. However, I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t the most fun I’ve had at the movies all year. If I saw it on DVD, I’m sure I’d be more keenly aware of all its flaws, but there’s something about seeing it in a theatre full of people who are really into it that I liken to the experience of seeing The Rocky Horror Picture Show, in that it isn’t really the movie itself, but the experience of seeing it with a whole bunch of other people, that makes it so special.

The action takes place on a small Greek island where Donna (Meryl Streep) has raised her daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) and runs an inn. Sophie, who has never known the identity of her father, discovers Donna’s diary and learns that there are three possible candidates: Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Bill (Stellan Skarsgard) and Harry (Colin Firth). Convinced that she’ll know her father at first sight, she invites all three to her impending wedding, which causes a variety of problems.

I’m sure you won’t be shocked if I tell you that the plot has very little bearing on the film beyond simply connecting the songs. In that regard, it does a serviceable job, though you really have to suspend your disbelief when it takes Donna the entire film to realize that it’s not just a coincidence that these three particular men have all shown up on the eve of Sophie’s wedding. And it’s also kind of unfair to build an entire plot around the question of paternity and then never actually resolve it. Personally, I suggest that if Sophie really wants to know she should just take all three men on Maury, because he does like four paternity shows a week (not that I have ever, during brief periods of unemployment, watched that show).

As far as the music goes, you’re either going to love it or hate it, but since most people already know whether they like Abba or find the music a particular form of torture, I doubt that many people have or will walk into this movie unaware. With that in mind, I have to say that I was a little put off by how aggressive the first half of this movie is - everyone is trying so hard to prove how much fun they’re having that it looks a lot more like work than fun. Meryl Streep is one of my favourite actresses, but it must be said that of the entire cast, she’s the most guilty of this “look how much fun this is” preening. I think it’s fair to say that anyone who walks into this movie is already pretty much sold on it, so the filmmakers and the cast could have pulled back a bit. By the second half everything feels more relaxed and the film hits its stride, but you have to get through that first half first.

I enjoyed Mama Mia! a lot, but I won’t argue with anyone that it’s a cheesy movie because it is. Oh, how it is. I mean, the "Voulez-Vous" number resembles a particularly overblown Duran Duran video from the 80s, but so what? It’s good cheese and it left me with a smile on my face.