superavel

by @superavel87

A Ridiculously Late Arrival to Kalokairi

I’ll admit it, I didn’t arrive at Kalokairi—I washed ashore, seventeen years late, wrapped in cynicism and the lingering scent of sunblock and self-denial. It took a colleague at work, who practically evangelised the Mamma Mia! films as one of their all-time favourite films, to finally nudge me into giving them a chance.

For years, I’d always dismissed jukebox musicals as loud glitter bombs—entertaining in theory, but not my kind of healing. Too loud. Too exposed. Too bright. Too something. Somehow, I’d missed both films entirely, even as they became cult classics for others.

And then one Sunday, one slow, restless Sunday afternoon, curled up in my gaming chair armed with nothing but a cosy blanket, I pressed play.

What followed wasn’t just a jukebox musical. It was an opening of something far more magical. What I got was something closer to an emotional portal—a mirror.

My first brush with ABBA came not through joy, but dissonance—“Dancing Queen” crackling through high school prom speakers beneath harsh fluorescent lights. I was still pretending then. Still trying to wear someone else’s skin and make it look effortless. The night, dressed up as a celebration, was really a quiet storm of adolescent unease. I hadn’t danced to a single song all night and didn’t know or feel connected to most of the music. I was there with a guy friend—not a date, not a dream—just someone who made the evening feel slightly less sharp around the edges.

I remember lingering at the edge of the dance floor, wrapped in clothes that never felt like mine, playing a part I hadn’t auditioned for. Then came that song—the one that made all the girls shriek and screamed for, the one they clung to each other over, singing as if it were their shared spell. “Dancing Queen” rose above the static and self-consciousness, and something inside me stir. Something I couldn’t name yet.

That moment, that melody, was the only piece of the night that felt almost true. And yet, even then, it felt like a song meant for someone else. Someone allowed to leap into joy without apology. Someone braver. Freer. Someone who knew how to throw her head back and shout the chorus with reckless abandon. Someone I hadn’t met yet—but longed for with a quiet ache.

Watching Mamma Mia!—and then Here We Go Again, back-to-back—felt like hearing it anew. There’s something quietly transcendent in how these films take ABBA’s sugary pop and infuse it with something deeper. It wasn’t just nostalgia. It was recognition. Like someone had dusted off a version of me I’d forgotten and asked her gently to dance.

The plot, of course, is gloriously implausible—like trying to hold sunshine in your hands. But that’s never been the point. The magic is in the margins. In the way these films centre women not as sidekicks or lessons, but as full, vibrant beings. Women who love messily, grieve deeply, laugh loudly. Women who leave, return, begin again.

And right at the core of that chaotic, golden heartbeat is Amanda Seyfried’s Sophie—first wide-eyed and searching, then luminous and weathered—was the thread I hadn’t realised I’d been clinging to.

In her, I saw so much of what I used to be. The girl who desperately wanted answers and still do. Sophie’s hunger to understand her beginnings, to trace her life like a map backward in hopes of moving forward. It was the craving for clarity. The need to name things to feel safe so that maybe the world make sense.

And when she returned in Here We Go Again, softened and luminous, grieving and glowing, I recognised her even more. Sophie wasn’t just a character anymore—she was an avatar for all the selves I’d had to become to survive.

Her grief and joy are intertwined, and that complexity felt profoundly human. Her performance deepens the entire franchise, layering it with a maturity and emotional gravity that hit me right in the chest. She reminded me of who I am becoming. Of the woman I now live as. Of how transition, healing, and memory are never straight lines—they spiral and echo, like verses in a familiar song.

And with every musical number, I felt something in me loosened. Laughed. Wept. Released.
To remember that joy is not a phase, but a choice—and sometimes a permission. Mamma Mia! didn’t change my life. But it reminded me that I had one—and that I was still allowed to live it.

And for someone like me—who spent so long trying to disappear into someone else’s idea of a “normal” life—that’s no small thing.

So yes, I arrived late. But I arrived.

And by the time the credits rolled, I wasn’t just watching anymore.

I was dancing. Alone in my lounge room, laughing-crying in pyjamas. No performance. No apology.

Just joy. Just me.

A dancing queen, at last.

2008’s Mamma Mia!: A Joyful Girlhood of Emotion and Becoming

2008’s Mamma Mia! isn’t so much a film as it is a fever-dream invitation—to feel louder than life, to shimmer through heartbreak, to become someone you once only dared to hum quietly in the dark. Directed by Phyllida Lloyd and adapted from the Broadway musical, it shouldn’t work. The plot is preposterous, stitched together with sequins and sunburnt sentiment—but somehow, impossibly, it does. And if you’re watching at the right moment in your life, it might even work on you.

We open on a Greek island at golden hour. Sophie, sings “I Have a Dream”—a deceptively gentle power ballad, as if ABBA’s lyrics had been rewritten as a spell. A wish whispered across a tide. She wants to know where she came from. Who she came from. And so, without telling her fiercely independent mother, on the eve of her wedding, she secretly invites three men from Donna’s past—Bill, Sam, and Harry—convinced that one of them is the father she’s never known.

It’s an absurd premise, but it’s also a deeply familiar ache: the hunger to understand yourself by understanding your history. That yearning hit me like an echo from another life—the one where I still clung to someone else’s story, hoping to rewrite the ending.

Sophie’s friends arrive, and the film launches into “Honey, Honey,” full of mischief and sun-drenched giddiness. As they flip through her mother’s long-buried diary, we feel it—that heady thrill of uncovering something secret and messy and yours. Beneath the flirtation and teenage rebellion is something more primal: the desire for truth, for roots, for a name that might finally make your reflection make sense, for the right to know your own story.

Sophie’s voice dances with innocence, but the yearning beneath struck something I recognised. The hunger for belonging. The secret belief that if you could just find the right name, the right lineage, the right label, something in you might finally settle. I saw myself in Sophie’s grin, trying to decode a version of myself I hadn’t dared name yet.

Then comes Donna.

Meryl Streep’s Donna isn’t just a character—she’s a storm wrapped in sunburnt linen and stubborn resilience. Overworked, overwrought, incandescent. When she launches into “Money, Money, Money,” it’s not just a campy fantasy—it’s a cry for mercy buried under sequins. It’s the anthem of a woman who’s done it all alone. A woman dancing through exhaustion, dreaming not of excess, but of a life that doesn’t cost her everything.

Streep leans into the absurdity with a wink, but behind every rhinestone and raised eyebrow, there’s a woman too tired to admit how much she’s carrying. Watching her, something in me cracked. Because I saw my mother in that stomp—stubborn, overextended, and trying to mask how much she was barely holding on. A woman who worked herself thin to keep our lives from unravelling.

Donna’s fantasy wasn’t greed—it was relief. To exhale. To be looked after, just once. It hit too close. Sometimes you build a life out of scraps and still wonder why you’re tired. And sometimes, in the middle of a musical number, a truth you’ve never said aloud begins to sing its way out.

When the three possible dads—Sam, Harry, and Bill—barrels back onto the island unannounced, “Mamma Mia” erupts from Donna like an emotional ambush, a glitter bomb in the chest. Streep plays the number with feral grace—half-wild, half-wounded—as Donna tries to sing her way out of remembering. It’s chaos, comedic and cutting, and beneath every flourish is a woman trying not to collapse in front of her own memories. I knew that panic. That impulse to perform joy while praying no one sees the fracture lines.

And then, like a balm, “Chiquitita”. Rosie and Tanya, her luminous, fearless friends, show up not to fix her but to witness her. The song begins like teasing and ends like prayer. These are women who know what it means to fall apart and still offer champagne and song. That scene—three women sitting with each other’s pain, not rushing it, not minimizing it—felt like something sacred. A gesture of care, of solidarity, of love without condition. The way they cradle Donna with music—it’s a kind of ministry I’ve come to know. It reminded me that healing can sound like friendship. That glitter can mend the cracks.

And then the moment that shattered me with joy: “Dancing Queen.”

It’s not just iconic. It’s transformative. Donna and the Dynamos spinning through the villa, reclaiming not youth—but joy. The permission to be seen. To be silly. To be loud. To take up space with your sorrow and still call it beautiful. I didn’t feel like I was watching them—I felt like I could be one of them. My feet ached to join. Somewhere in that swirl of sequins and sea breeze, I remembered the girl I once was in secret, dancing when no one was home.

The film slows again for “Our Last Summer,” a soft, warm, dreamy montage between Sophie and her three maybe-dads, their connection blooming not from answers, but affection. What could’ve been played for awkwardness becomes warm, glowing with the ache of nostalgia and the sweetness of possibility. They aren’t just trying to be fathers—they’re trying to remember who they used to be. And Sophie, in her openheartedness, gives them space to become that again. That kind of generosity of spirit? I recognised that, too. Sometimes, you offer others the gentleness you needed and never got.

The night before the wedding, Donna and the Dynamos reunite on stage with “Super Trouper”—a performance so glittery and affectionate it feels sacred. Sophie watches with shining eyes, and in that moment, you sense an unspoken handoff: mother to daughter, woman to woman. It’s not about approval. It’s about recognition.

But beneath the sparkle, pressure builds. Sophie’s fantasy is fraying. “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” pulses with flirtation and chaos, and everything spins out during “Voulez-Vous”—a delirious, surreal dance of rising panic. Sophie collapses under the weight of all the secrets and possibilities. I remembered that collapse. That fear that the closer you get to truth, the more unstable everything becomes.

Even the rough edges in Mamma Mia! have a strange kind of beauty. Pierce Brosnan’s infamous “SOS” isn’t vocally perfect—far from it. It’s jagged, almost painfully raw, like someone performing open-heart surgery with a karaoke mic. But maybe that’s why it works. There’s no polish, no pretence—just a man trying to say something he should’ve said years ago. The vulnerability in his voice is almost too much to look at, like watching someone unlearn their pride in real time. And somehow, that hit deeper than any perfect note ever could.

It reminded me of my parents, standing in opposite corners of the same room, too many things said between them. They never quite learned how to meet in the middle. Their silences were louder than their fights. That kind of broken honesty—the kind that stumbles, that doesn’t know how to land but tries anyway—felt achingly familiar. Sometimes the truth doesn’t come out clean. Sometimes, it just has to come out at all.

“Does Your Mother Know” is pure camp, with Christine Baranski swatting away a lovestruck younger man like an unbothered goddess. Tanya owns the scene, dripping with glamor and biting wit. She doesn’t apologize for her age, her sexuality, or her standards. She doesn’t explain herself. And I watched her with something between awe and envy—because isn’t that what so many of us crave? The power to take up space without apology?

Then comes “Slipping Through My Fingers.”

Donna brushes Sophie’s hair. Helps her dress. Tries not to cry. It’s the quietest song in the film—and the most devastating. It’s not just about a mother losing her daughter. It’s about time. About all the little selves we grow out of. The ones we forget to mourn. I thought of the girl I once was—the one I let slip through my own fingers because I didn’t know I could keep her.

And then, “The Winner Takes It All.”

Streep. Alone on a cliff. No more dance breaks. No more sparkle. Just a woman, exhaling a lifetime of pain into the sea. It’s not a love song—it’s a survival ballad. A woman daring to name what she lost and still keep walking. I’ve stood in that place. Grieved the life I thought I wanted. Named the pain. And somehow, kept going.

The wedding arrives, but instead of tying a neat bow, the story twists. Sophie decides not to marry. Not yet. She and Sky leave the island to find their own way—free, hand in hand. Sam and Donna, in turn, find their own second chance. “SOS (reprise)” and “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do” rings out, full of joy not because the past is fixed—but because the future has been chosen. She leaves the island with Sky, hand in hand, no longer afraid.

“When All Is Said and Done” from Harry is gentle, lovely—a grace note of acceptance and queer subtext. His quiet confession of a past love, barely spoken, resonated with me in ways I couldn’t name. So much of queer experience is quiet like that. Hidden, soft, folded into stories where we hope someone might understand.

“Take a Chance on Me” is Rosie’s moment, bold and hilarious as she flirts with Bill. It’s chaotic in the best way—a woman going after what she wants, laughing as she leaps. It reminded me of women I’ve watched from the edges of rooms—women who claimed space with laughter and hips that swayed like defiance. Women I longed to become before I knew I was allowed to want that.

Then, of course, the finale—“Mamma Mia (Reprise),” “Dancing Queen (Reprise),” and “Waterloo.” The fourth wall breaks. The credits roll. Everyone sings. The cast dances into oblivion. Everyone shimmers. It’s excess. It’s unnecessary. It’s perfect. It’s pure, absurd celebration.

As the camera pulled away and the credits rolled, I realised I was smiling.

Not politely. Not performatively.
But wholly.

Because this wasn’t just a jukebox musical.
It was a permission slip.

To laugh.
To mourn.
To shimmer.
To take up space.
To name myself.
To dance.

It’s not a perfect film. But it doesn’t need to be. It dares to feel too much, laugh too loudly, sing off-key, love shamelessly. And for someone like me, that was more than enough.

2018’s Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again: Through Time and Heart That Carried Me Back—and Forward

A decade after Mamma Mia! first exploded onto our screens in a blaze of sequins and sun. Some sequels follow. This one circles. Directed by Ol Parker, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is a sequel-slash-prequel that is both bigger and more bittersweet, a musical mosaic that celebrates youth, memory, motherhood, and the strange way music stitches together all the moments we thought were lost. It’s a song sung twice, once in youth and once in mourning. And somewhere in that reflection and space between, I saw myself again—a little more whole and present. Someone daring to live again.

It begins again, and again, with “Thank You for the Music.” This time it’s young Donna, luminous and loud, standing on the cusp of the world. But in her voice is a kind of goodbye. We know what she doesn’t yet—that she won’t get to grow old. That she will leave behind songs and soil and a daughter aching to feel her still. I remember singing alone in my room too, long before I had the words for myself. Thanking the music because I didn’t yet know how to thank me.

“When I Kissed the Teacher” explodes like a campus riot in pastel. Young Donna and the Dynamos crash through academia like joy incarnate. It’s playful, rebellious, dripping with uncontainable energy. And beneath the antics, there’s a sense of bursting free. Every time I’ve leapt into the unknown—into love, into change, into transition—I think of this song. I was Donna, grinning in a cap and gown, running toward myself at full tilt.

“I Wonder (Departure)” is the quiet comedown. Donna, about to leave home, pauses in the doorway of the life she’s outgrown. The lyrics ache with possibility and doubt. It reminded me of every time I stood at a threshold, terrified to leave but more afraid to stay. You can’t grow if you don’t depart.

On the boat with Harry, the sweetness of “One of Us” plays like a memory echoing into the now. Sophie and Sky are apart. Distance, dreams, and grief have come between them. The song floats over the sea and under skin—it’s about the people we love, and the parts of ourselves we leave behind. I’ve been both voices in that song. Wanting. Regretting. Hoping the door is still open. I held my breath. The scene is almost unbearably quiet. There are no fireworks, no dance numbers. Just a girl in love, slightly undone, trying to hold still while everything shifts. She sings it like she’s trying not to fall apart, the split-screen staging highlighting the distance between two people still aching in proximity.

“Waterloo” hits like a fever dream in a Parisian restaurant. Young Harry tries too hard. Donna shines too bright. It’s silly, surreal, and completely delightful. And it hides a truth: sometimes love isn’t enough to anchor us. Sometimes, charm and choreography can’t outpace destiny.

With “Why Did It Have to Be Me?”, Donna meets Bill, and the chemistry crackles like sea foam and mischief. It’s flirtation as navigation—fun, fearless, tinged with something more. Watching young Donna weave through these men isn’t about conquest. It’s about becoming. About trying on lives like dresses until one finally fits.

And then we arrive at the island. With “I Have a Dream” once more, Donna steps onto Kalokairi. And just like that, so do we. The music slows, the air thickens, and a kind of sacred hush settles. She plants roots here. Builds. Blooms. This isn’t just a love story—it’s an origin myth. And in every stone, I saw not just her beginning—but mine.

“Kisses of Fire” blares as Donna and Sam crash into each other with wild abandon. The song is pure heat—desire on the edge of recklessness. But fire burns. And when she learns the truth about his engagement, it’s Donna who walks away. I watched her and felt a sting of pride. Of pain. Of self-respect learned too late.

“Andante, Andante.” is the song of the whole film. Donna sings it like she’s offering her heart note by note. Soft. Vulnerable. Inviting love not to devour her, but to dance gently. It’s breathy and deliberate, a woman learning how to be soft without losing herself. here’s tenderness in the performance, but also a quiet declaration of self-worth. It’s a song about inviting someone in—but on your terms. I didn’t breathe the first time I heard it. It’s how I wish someone had held me—gently, reverently—when I first came out. It’s how I hope to be held still.

“The Name of the Game” is more fragile than flirty. Donna and Sam, post-revelation, trying to understand each other. To ask, without asking, if this could still be something. If they’ve already ruined what might have been. It’s a cut song, only in the extended version—but in that cut, I saw so much of myself. All the almosts. All the would’ve-beens.

“Knowing Me, Knowing You” becomes a duet between past and present. Sam leaves. Young love fractures. The future rushes in like a wave. And still, Donna stays. She makes this island hers—not in spite of heartbreak, but because of it. That’s courage. That’s womanhood. That’s survival.

“Mamma Mia” reappears, this time with Lily James radiating chaos and glitter in equal measure. It’s less breakdown, more breakthrough. She’s not haunted—she’s alive. Singing through the mess. Owning every mistake, every moment. It’s the kind of reclamation I only learned much later.

And now, in the present: Sophie. Mourning her mother. Rebuilding the hotel. Rebuilding herself. “Angel Eyes” gives her, Rosie, and Tanya a chance to let loose. It’s hilarious and biting—righteous anger dressed in disco. I laughed, but underneath, I felt it. How many “angel eyes” have I fallen for, only to learn they weren’t looking at me, not really?

“Fernando” is a camp fever dream come true. Cher descends like a goddess. Andy García looks stunned. It’s ridiculous and lush and entirely earned. But when she sings it, there’s longing. History. A life of love and loss held in that one name. It made me believe again, even for a moment, that old flames never really die.

“I’ve Been Waiting for You.” Sophie sings it to her unborn child, but it’s more than a lullaby. It’s a bridge—between generations, between grief and grace. Donna’s absence is palpable. And yet, in Sophie’s voice, she is here. I wept. Because I too have waited—for someone to see me. To meet the version of myself I’d waited my whole life to become.

And then, like a tide, “My Love, My Life.” Meryl returns as a ghost, maybe. Or maybe just memory. She and Sophie sing across time and flesh. Mother to daughter. Woman to woman. It’s not a flashy number. Their duet is slow, reverent, like a whispered goodbye and an unspoken thank you all at once. Something in me exhaled. As a woman who has walked a path of profound self-discovery, who often feels caught between who I’ve been and who I’m becoming, that song reached into something wordless in me. Because love, when sung with that much gentleness, breaks something open.

In the finale, “Super Trouper” rises like a resurrection. Everyone returns. Past and present collapse into one glitter-drenched vision. There’s no logic, just love. Just legacy. And in that final shot, Sophie christens her baby with Donna’s name. We don’t need to see her to know she’s there.

The credits roll with “The Day Before You Came.” A melancholy postlude. A whispered wondering. It’s a song about everything that changes when someone walks into your life. Even if they leave too soon. Especially if they do.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is not just a sequel—it’s a second coming of age. One for Donna. One for Sophie. And quietly, gently, for me too.

What I didn’t expect, watching Here We Go Again, was how much it would say about continuity. About women becoming, again and again, across time and memory and song. About the beauty of being more than one thing—more than one version of yourself—without apology.

This isn’t just a film about mothers and daughters. It’s about girlhood and womanhood as something you get to choose. Something you get to return to, even if you were late to the party. Something you get to build, brick by glittering brick, even if no one handed you the blueprint.

Here We Go Again gave me back something I hadn’t realized I was still mourning. Not a person. Not even a past. But the belief that I could step into joy without asking for permission. It’s about choosing to hold joy, even when it hurts. And choosing to love who you are—even if you had to fight to become her.

Because sometimes you don’t know how much you’ve changed until you hear a familiar song—and it hits different. And it doesn’t hurt anymore. It heals.

And that, to me, is everything.

Final Thoughts: Thank You for the Music, and the Mirror

You don’t expect films like Mamma Mia! to stay with you. Not really.

You expect them to be glittering, silly things—like sequins that catch the light and fall away. You expect to laugh, maybe sing along. You don’t expect to cry. You certainly don’t expect to heal. And yet, somehow, these films—especially Here We Go Again—became something else entirely. Not just entertainment, but a mirror. A memory. A quiet reminder of who I’ve been, and who I might still become.

Because underneath the camp and choreography, these films have always had something sacred stitched into their seams: joy as resistance. Femininity as resilience. Grief, not as an end, but as a doorway to deeper love.

I came to them sceptically. I stayed because I saw myself.

What surprised me most wasn’t just the music—though, let’s be honest, ABBA’s alchemy defies logic. It was Amanda Seyfried. Her Sophie. Her softness. The way she held the entire story with both hands—never grasping, never demanding, just carrying. A daughter, a dreamer, a woman in progress. In her, I saw every version of myself: bright-eyed, broken, blooming. Her voice trembles sometimes, but it never disappears. That vulnerability? That’s the strength.

Through her, the ABBA soundtrack becomes more than karaoke nostalgia—it becomes a kind of emotional cartography. “Honey, Honey” is playful, breathless young love. “Lay All Your Love on Me” is pure desire and vulnerability. “I Have a Dream” is a whisper of longing for a life still in bloom. And “One of Us”—stripped back, aching, and sincere—is heartbreak caught in amber. It’s a confession whispered through clenched teeth. It’s the ache of wanting someone to see you, really see you, even when you’re pushing them away. I didn’t know a jukebox musical could reach into my chest and hold my loneliness so gently. But there it was.

And that’s what makes Mamma Mia! matter. Beneath the camp and chaos lies something rare: a space where women are allowed to feel deeply, to be messy and radiant and wrong and forgiven. There’s no cynicism here, no punishment for joy.

These stories are unapologetically feminine—they celebrate the bonds between women, the unpredictability of love, the pain of loss, and the defiance of hope. These films let women be messy. Be luminous. Be lost and still deserving of love. They don’t ask you to tidy yourself up before the music starts. They say: come as you are. In sequins or in sorrow. On the dance floor or in your bathrobe. They meet you there. They give us dancing queens and super troupers and remind us we can be both at once.

This isn’t just a story about mothers and daughters. It’s about inheritance—not of property, but of spirit. Of music. Of softness that refuses to be erased.

And so, I’ll keep pressing play.

What started as a casual watch turned into something transformative. I went in a sceptic. I came out a super trouper. The music, the women, the sun-drenched chaos—it was infectious. Songs like “Dancing Queen” and “Super Trouper” aren’t just catchy—they’re coded with memories, emotion, and resilience. And Amanda Seyfried, in all her sincerity and grace, became the through-line of it all—a version of womanhood I didn’t know I needed to see.

So if you haven’t pressed play in a while—or ever—this is your sign. Let the music find you. Let yourself feel something. Let yourself be something. Maybe even forgive something. And if you have? Then you already know.

Because as the song says—“Here I go again.”

And honestly? What a joy it is to go.

Final Verdict:

• Mamma Mia! (2008): 7.5/10 — Flawed but irresistibly charming.
• Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018): 8.5/10 — A more refined, emotionally resonant encore.

If Mamma Mia! taught me anything, it’s that you don’t need permission to feel everything. You don’t need permission to start again.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got feta to eat, a ferry to Kalokairi to book, and ABBA to blast until my neighbours complain—or join in.