“The stars turn and a time presents itself.”
– Twin Peaks (2017)
A collection of foreigners, scattered across the globe, gather together on a remote island. The accusation of a love affair between professor and pupil. Free love is a bargaining tool to get from one place to another. Is this challenging, arthouse cinema? No, it’s friggin’ Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.
This sequel has been on my radar for a while; I really enjoyed the stage musical and I saw the first film twice in its opening weekend ten years ago. But time and space matter not in the Mamma Mia!-verse, as I have come to learn since seeing the sequel less than one day ago.
I was first intrigued by the device of time by the “payoff” poster revealed a few weeks prior to the movie’s release: a dock featuring the entire cast, including “doubles” of characters in their past and present iterations. I was, admittedly, bothered and a little confused that two Donnas, two Tanyas, two Rosies, and two of all the guys were somehow gathered together, somehow transcended time and space to gather together for this group photo.
As I reflect on this cinematic journey though, my frustration may have been unfair and unfounded. I thought it a silly oversight somehow – maybe the graphic designer didn’t know they were two separate generations of the same characters, and why would they be together all at once. I never once considered it was deliberate, perhaps even foreshadowing.
You see, timelines in the Mamma Mia!-verse are more fluid than the lovely vocals of ABBA. The sequel Here We Go Again is both prequel and sequel, following Sophie as a young married woman, and also flashing back to her mom Donna after she graduates from college and underwent an international sexual awakening. We’re supposed to see parallels between the two narratives, and this is reiterated many times visually: a camera panning up to the sun-kissed sky in one time line, then scrolling back down in another place and time altogether; sliding down a staircase with the carefree young Donna, decades before Sophie descends down the very same steps; and, very memorably, one of them throws up into the toilet, and the camera pans out to reveal the other. Like mother, like daughter indeed!
Time is completely shattered, however, come the polyester-drenched finale number “Super Trooper,” featuring young Donna, Tanya, Rosie; adult Donna, Tanya, Rosie; young Sam, Bill, Harry; adult Sam, Bill, Harry; and of course Sophie and Cher are there too. The youthful and more senior Tanyas even slither back-to-back, sing in the other’s face, and look one another in the eyes. Even more astounding is their sheer coolness about it; they are neither surprised nor confused about seeing the younger/older version of themselves, as if crossing time to be with oneself at another age were perfectly natural.
Making the unnatural natural may be the underlying conceit, or perhaps message, of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. Just as the plot is wrapping up with a bow at the end, a cameo by Cher (in an insane wig) helps launch the film back into the stratosphere, complete with artificial backdrops and even CGI fireworks to top it all off. The levels of artifice skyrocket and keep elevating to otherworldly levels, so perhaps the bending of time is simply the next natural phase of this inter-dimensional phenomenon.
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again doesn’t offer the horrors of other recent sci-fi like Annihilation, though its visual workings and time leaps are truly something out of this world. I’m not sure I could say I enjoyed it, but I admire its sheer audacity and how it challenges (or maybe just disregards) standards of continuity and logic in the service of ABBA. I know I sure would.
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