With well-known ABBA songs, an idyllic Greek location and more stars than you can shake a stick at, Mamma Mia! is bound to be the feel-good hit film of the summer.

Based on the hugely successful stage production, this musical movie stars Meryl Streep as ex-pat Donna, a single mum with a run-down hotel on a beautiful Greek island. Her daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is marrying Sky (the gorgeous, and often topless, Dominic Cooper) and the bride-to-be wants her father at the wedding. Only trouble is, he could be one of three (played by Firth, Brosnan and Skarsgård). Sophie secretly invites them all to the wedding in the hope that her mother will reveal the truth.

As you would expect, it's a pretty silly film, but that's a huge part of its charm. Julie Walters and Christine Baranski are brilliantly funny as Donna's best friends and one-time backing singers in Donna and the Dynamos, and seeing James Bond attempting to sing ABBA is almost worth the ticket price alone. Fans of Colin Firth's wet shirt Mr Darcy moment must rush out to see this film too, as the gorgeous man goes one step further towards the end of the film in a moment of shirtless abandon.

To read the rest of my thoughts on the film just read more

ABBA's Björn and Benny were involved with the casting and auditioned the actors in person and over the phone — during the men's press conference Stellan joked that he handed the phone over to a friend — so if you're a fan of the band you'll adore the score. There is also a soundtrack available to buy, and I haven't minded the fact that I haven't been able to get the songs out of my head since seeing the film.

There were moments where I laughed with the film and moments when I laughed because of the absurdity of it all, but it pretty much manages to pull off a bizarre blend of knowing irony and heartfelt sincerity. It is a strange mix, which I was I couldn't be any more generous with my star rating, and without the star cast the film would lose a lot of its attraction. But a starry cast it is, as the film's producer Judy Craymer was well aware of when I met her: "We said our ideal casting is Meryl Streep, and they [the studio] said you’ll never get her, and the rest is history". And boy am I thankful for that.

Meryl Streep is totally wonderful in her role as the mother who is finding it hard to let her daughter leave, and the scene where she sings "Slipping Through My Fingers" to her on-screen daughter was surprisingly and genuinely moving. It also made me forgive Amanda Seyfried for the annoying opening scene where her friends arrive. Don't let the shaky start put you off though, because it gets better and better.

The huge musical numbers like "Dancing Queen" and "Voulez-Vous" (which was far from easy to rehearse!) are unsurprisingly big highlights of the film, as is the gorgeous Greek location. I was lucky enough to be in Skiathos and Skopelos last month and they really are that beautiful. As the director Phyllida Lloyd said in the women's press conference, by filming on location the landscape "brought a whole new epic dimension to it which I was able to capitalise on". With the weather as it is at the moment, I'd recommend you buy a ticket and transport yourself into the world of Mamma Mia!, which opens in the UK today. After all, how could you resist it?

Photos courtesy of Universal Pictures