A few weeks ago, while in Las Vegas on a business trip, I got roped into seeing the stage musical “Mamma Mia,” featuring the music of 70’s pop band ABBA, by some Indian businessmen with whom I was traveling. I was not expecting much. However, I admit that by the end of the production, I discovered that I had enjoyed myself. A few weeks later I learned that “Mamma Mia” is being made into a movie musical, starring none other than Meryl Streep. I never even knew she could sing! Early reports confirm that Streep, who just turned 58, gives a powerhouse performance in the film- complete with singing, dancing, and even full splits.

Filmed last summer in Pinewood Studios and on location on the picturesque island of Skopelos in Greece, the movie version is a glorious and deeply silly confection.

Reports from early test screenings are universally positive – the audiences who have seen it at a secret showing in San Diego came out raving about the transfer of the musical to the big screen.

The surprise?

That Meryl Streep, at 58, is athletic, has a big voice – clear, true and strong – and delivers the goods on Abba’s classics without a trace of embarrassment. It is, obviously, her first musical, and the deep thinkers in Hollywood are amazed by the way she is apparently happy to demolish her reputation as a serious-minded Oscar-winning grande dame.

And yet Streep, who is known for her hard-to-live-with perfectionism and love of tricky bits of acting technique and odd accents, emerges from this film as a woman who is accomplished at physical comedy and actually funny when the occasion demands.

‘Meryl is very good – it’s a revelation,’ says one who has seen the film, in which she plays Donna, the mother of a bride-to-be who is confronted by three potential fathers on the eve of her nuptials.

It transpires that Streep saw the stage show in New York with her daughter as a birthday treat and wrote a fan letter to the producers afterwards.

[From The Huffington Post]

I don’t know if “surprise” is really the right word to describe her work in this movie. After all, Streep is one of the finest actors of her generation. I think she could pretty much do anything she sets her mind to on film. In “Angels in America,” the HBO miniseries, Streep played everything from Ethel Rosenberg to a Jewish rabbi. She’s also playing Julia Child in the upcoming biopic. Hopefully people will give “Mamma Mia” a fair shot, even if it stars women over 35 and doesn’t feature CGI monsters. Hey, if “Sex and the City” can bring in audiences, maybe Meryl can too.