Though the GOP just yesterday passed a sweeping tax bill to benefit the wealthiest of Americans, already another contender has arisen as the week’s loudest cry for a war on rich old white people. Here it is, literally singing out, begging for us to consume it: the first trailer for Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.
Continuing the original’s pairing of seaside vistas and ABBA songs—the gluten-free Tuscan flatbread and far too aged rosé of visuals and audio—the film functions as both a sequel and a prequel. In modern times, we revisit Amanda Seyfried’s Sophie, now pregnant and revisiting the friends and former lovers of mother Donna (Meryl Streep, in the backseat here if not already dead in the trunk). Meanwhile, Christine Baranski (reprising her career-long role as rich, thrice-divorced, drunken, clucking best friend), recounts to Sophie the earlier life of Donna—Lily James, in her first time being compared to a young Meryl Streep, plays the 20-something Donna, living out the sexual encounter trilogy that was the basis of the first Mamma Mia. Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård, and Colin Firth (seemingly channeling a haggard Bill Pullman) reprise their roles as Sophie’s possible fathers; though it in no way makes sense mathematically, Cher now plays Sophie’s grandma, appearing as Lady Gaga by way of a late Diane Keaton role.
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again will begin making an inexplicable amount of money (the 2008 original took in over $600 million and remains at number nine in the top-grossing films of all time in the UK) July 20.
