Mamma Mia Part II: Your Best Friend

Recently I watched Mamma Mia for the 5000th time and I had so many thoughts that SBSarah suggested I split them into three posts. The first was about how the film addresses and rejects slut-shaming. In this post, I’m going to talk about how the movie deals with relationships between women, and in the next one I’ll talk about the focus the movie places on older adults owning their sexuality and their choices, past and present. If you need a refresher on the plot, check out that first post, “Mamma Mia Part One: Grow Back Down Again.

Mamma Mia places relationships between women in two contexts: familial and friendly. The familial bond is expressed through Donna’s relationship with her daughter, Sophie. It’s also addressed through the much more toxic relationship that Donna had with her own mother, a woman who has died before the start of the movie but whom the characters refer in dialogue. Even though there are only a few lines about Donna’s mother, they are loaded with so much significance that Donna’s mother is an extra, though unseen, character in the film.

All throughout the movie, Donna is haunted by her mother. When things go wrong, she says, “Someone up there has it in for me – I bet it’s my mother,” to which her friend replies, “What a ray of sunshine she was” with intense sarcasm. When Donna calls her younger self a “stupid, reckless little slut,” her friends say, “Oh, don’t you sound like your mother!” They are amused by this; Donna is not. Donna’s mom kicked her out when Donna got pregnant with Sophie, and that seems to be the last time they spoke. Despite appearing to be independent, Donna’s whole adult life has basically been a response to her mother, with her fighting to show that she can make a good life for herself and Sophie, and concealing her past sexual life from everyone for fear of judgment.

Donna falls all over herself to avoid subjecting Sophie to the same kinds of judgment that her own mother subjected her to. She supports Sophie’s choices even when she disagrees with them – the fact that Donna thinks Sophie is too young to get married does not stop Donna from throwing Sophie the wedding that Sophie wants. Sophie has her own mom issues – she worries about letting Donna down by marrying instead of being independent. Even though their relationship is strained by the secrets Donna keeps and by Donna’s emotional dependence on Sophie, Donna is quick to reassure Sophie that Sophie can leave, and that Donna supports her choices. Donna is not a perfect mom – she can be domineering, she can be overwhelming, and she keeps secrets that adversely affect Sophie’s sense of self and cause distance between them. But Donna is a solid mom: non-judgmental, supportive, and deeply and openly affectionate towards her daughter.

One of the most powerful moments in the movie comes when Sophie asks her mom to get her ready for the wedding. As we hear Donna singing, “Slipping Through My Fingers,” we see them preparing. You can tell everything about their relationship by the body language – Sophie is almost always looking past or away from her mom, towards independence, but her body keeps returning to her mom’s body, where the security is. It’s a lovely tribute to a lovely song and a complex and powerful relationship between two women. Prepare to weep copiously.

We also see relationships between female friends. Donna has two longtime friends, Tanya and Rosie. Sophie has two longtime friends, Ali and Lisa. Both sets of friends have fun together, and both sets of friends are determined to speak the truth (which basically consists of telling Donna and Sophie that they are being ridiculous, because they TOTALLY ARE) and supporting them anyway. Sophie’s friends are somewhat in the background whereas the experience of Donna and her friends takes center stage, partly because as older women they have more shared history to enjoy.

Ali, Sophie, and Lisa
Ali, Sophie, and Lisa

Donna’s friends love her, they accept her, they remind her of their shared history, and they help her reclaim parts of herself that she had surrendered. We should all be so lucky. The friends are another example of the importance of balancing honesty and supportiveness – they will call each other out on their bullshit, by try to help each other achieve their goals even when they think those goals are flawed. They aren’t perfect friends. The song “Chiquitita” veers from sweetness to slapstick as they accidentally ignore Donna even as they are trying to help her, and back to sweetness as the regain their focus on her.

Of course this leads to “Dancing Queen,” in which they get Donna to jump on the bed and run down to the docks and basically have a huge party. It’s significant that “Dancing Queen” is such a huge number in the film, because it’s not about romance. There’s tons of romance in the movie, but the point of the movie is less that it’s important for Donna to renew her romance with Sam and more that Donna has to renew her connection to herself – and she does that not through romance but through friendship.

While I’m focusing on women in this post, I’m also very fond of the fact that Donna’s three exes, who have never met each other before the start of the movie, quickly become fast friends. There’s no jealousy or macho posturing. They are just three guys who like Donna and who think that Sophie is adorable (true dat) and who are up for an adventure. There’s not much focus to this new friendship, but their ease with each other and their refusal to try any one-upmanship is what makes the happy ending possible.

In my next Mamma Mia post, I’ll talk more about the romances and experiences of the older generation: Donna, Tanya, Rosie, Sam, Harry, and Bill. I love the romances in this movie, and I definitely think that they are important to the themes of the movie. But I also think that the most compelling love stories in Mamma Mia are those between mother and daughters, and between long time friends.

Mamma Mia! is available to purchase or stream at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google:Play, and iTunes.

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  1. I just wanted to say I am LOVING this series! Really looking forward to Part 3. 🙂

  2. chacha1 says:

    I appreciated the whole movie for being devoid of artificial conflicts between the protagonists and their friends (jealousies, deceptions, love triangles, who’s got more money). I don’t remember a single Mean Girl (or guy) in the whole thing, and that is very rare. Not every love story has more than one conflict (and some don’t actually have ANY). Here, everybody is on Team Dancing Queen.

  3. Doug Glassman says:

    I’m not sure if “Slipping Through My Fingers” is more depressing than “Til I’m Grown” from the Jungle Book, but it’s close.

  4. CarrieS says:

    I never think of Slipping Thorugh My Fingers as sad, but I do think that it does a really good job of capturing how children are at once intimately connected to us and yet totally unknowable.

  5. Bona says:

    I just love these posts of yours about Mamma Mia!
    It’s a movie we all love at home. Meryl Streep is just great, how much she can convey just with a glance, the movement of a finger, she’s one of those actresses that uses all her body to express an emotion.
    And yes, you were right. That song made me cry.
    Being the mother of a daughter, I understood Donna’s feelings perfectly well. Mothers and daughters. They say when you are a mother, you understand your parents better. But I think that’s not true in Donna’s case. She feels this great love towards her child -something we can all relate to- and surely she asks herself how her own mother couldn’t love her that way, or at least a fraction of it.
    I can’t wait to read the next post.
    And friends, thank God there still are friends that stick to you no matter what. Even when you are completely wrong.

  6. Heather Lovatt says:

    I’ve NEVER seen this movie. I am 59. I grew UP on all the principle players in this film (Just watched Colin Firth in a very long and intelligent youtube vid press conference for that spy movie he was in–what an intelligent man! *sigh*) but I hit a point in life where I stopped going to movies. Hearing you talk about the feminine and friendship elements reminds me, in a way, of how little of this kind of topic was tackled while I was watching film.

    I, just this moment, remembered Meryl Streep from a Robert Redford movie, “The Natural”. *grin* Seeing her here as a grown up mom made me instantly wish she’d been my mom. I’ve never thought that about an actor!

    I loved watching Pierce Brosnan, in the next post, sing. I could care less how well he sang, he sang the way I expected my Remington Steele/James Bond to sound. Lovely, lovely stuff.

    And Meryl’s two friends had lovely harmony in that “Chiquitita” piece as well. I love those two actors! Every vid in these posts was superb!

    Lovely stuff.

    I am here trying to figure out romance writing and you give me SUCH good stuff to think about.

    Thank you.

    Heather

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