Here We Go Again

Cast of Mamma Mia Here We Go Again 

I’m participating in Jim Adams’ Thursday Inspiration today, in which he asks for a song about the struggle with the temptation of getting back together with an ex. Welp, that’s one of the major themes in the Mamma Mia movies, so how could I resist discussing them yet again? 

In the first movie, Donna (played by Meryl Streep) is shocked to discover that not one, not two, but three of her exes have arrived on the island the day before her daughter’s wedding. Sophie (Donna’s daughter, played by Amanda Seyfried) found the three names in a 21 year old diary that Donna had kept the summer she became pregnant with Sophie, and Sophie knew that one of them must be her father. Sophie wanted to find him to make her wedding “perfect,” and she assumed she’d know him the moment she saw him, but she doesn’t. Donna tries to keep her distance from these guys, especially Sam (played by Pierce Brosnan), who was the one she truly loved, while the other two were flings. It’s a struggle that she ultimately loses because she just can’t resist him. Who could? I mean, Pierce Brosnan! Double Oh Seven! Hear Donna sing “Mamma Mia” as she gives in to temptation.

The second MM movie depicts Donna’s life during that fateful summer when she meets the three young men while traveling around Europe, and here young Donna is played brilliantly by Lily James. After she falls for Sam on a remote Greek island and spends a week with him, she discovers that he is engaged to another woman back home. Donna’s two besties travel to the island to console her, and Donna ends up singing “Mamma Mia” with them in a cafe as she attempts to shake off her heartbreak (the three women have been a “girl power” band since their college days). Here’s that version.

There are other second chance love stories in MM. Rosie (one of Donna’s friends) gives Bill (one of the possible fathers) a second chance after he cheats on her because he’s changed, supposedly. Ruby (Donna’s mom) and Fernando (the hotel manager) go for round two after being separated for decades due to war. Even Sophie and her boyfriend Sky reunite after a break when Sky was considering taking a job in New York.

It’s funny about second chances. When they work out, as they did for Donna and Sam in the first MM, we say oh how wonderful they forgave each other and made a new start. When they don’t work out, as in all my cases, we say how could you be such an idiot to forgive him? Perhaps they only work out in fiction…