You’d have to like ABBA songs an awful lot to enjoy hearing them forced onto this sitcom story, drawn from the stage musical, about a young dimwit (Amanda Seyfried) who invites three of her mother’s former lovers to her wedding, hoping to discover which one of them is her father. Essentially, everyone sits around waiting for someone to hit play on a CD player containing ABBA discs. Then they jump up and dance, or cry, depending on the song that appears (the emotional requirements of the narrative have little to do with it). Meryl Streep, as the mother, is a sunny, spirited delight in the early scenes, but Mamma Mia! doesn’t deserve her.
