My daughter watches the film Mamma Mia two to three hundred times every day, so I know the story inside out. The question running through Mamma Mia is this: who is Sophie’s father? The big clues point towards the reluctant Bill Anderson: Sophie is named after his Aunty, said Aunty left her money when she died (“I thought that was left to family?”) and one of the major musical numbers which featured Bill and was cut from the final edit of the film, suggesting that it gave too much weight to their relationship and gave away too much information.
But stop. Sophie’s mum doesn’t know who the father is so that makes all the clues red-herrings. If she doesn’t know then Sophie’s name and the inheritance don’t come into the equation at all.
Here’s the question: Sophie’s mum doesn’t know who the father is but does the story know the answer? The cut scene suggests it might. Does Sophie’s name and the inheritance go beyond the love and affection between Aunt Sophia and Donna Sheridan, something that the story knows but Donna doesn’t?
After all, the story is born of the storyteller; the characters within it are just vehicles to tell the story.
Tags: Characters, Mamma Mia, narration
Written by Adrian Robinson
25th October, 2009
