Directors: Max Giwa & Dania Pasquini
Stars: Annabel Scholey, Hannah Arterton, Greg Wise, Leona Lewis, Katy Brand, Giulie Berruti
Walking on Sunshine is a spiritual sequel to Mamma Mia!. This film takes place in Italy. Two sisters, one is getting married, the other comes over and finds out that the groom is someone she fell in love with three years ago. Oh no! Whatever will happen?! The drama! The tragedy! The tension!
Let’s start with the good things. Italy is a beautiful country.
Now onto the bad…
The plot is completely insipid. I mean, I know this is just cheesy fun and everything and it’s not exactly meant to be high art or whatever, but it’s like no thought was given to the characters or…anything. No-one is sympathetic at all and there’s no investment in the storyline at all. There’s no reason to care about any of these characters. The developments are predictable, the singing is bad, it’s just not fun at all. Mamma Mia! was cheesy as well but at least you had the acting talents to back it up, and the fact that some were bad singers (Mr. Bond) it was funny, but the actors in Walking on Sunshine aren’t as recognisable so when they sing badly it’s not being able to laugh at a familiar face, it’s just listening to some person sing badly. Which you don’t want in a musical.
My first point about Italy being the only good thing about the film was said partly in jest. There was a really nice shot of a beach sunset that was gorgeous, and for a couple of songs the choreography was good. However, I don’t think they did enough with the songs. I would have liked to have seen more mash-ups and the film was at its best when it used songs that helped accentuate the story rather than just used songs because they were famous 80s hits.
There’s one thing that annoys me more than anything else though. In the cast list you might notice Leona Lewis’ name appearing.
*Takes a deep breath*.
HOW CAN YOU CAST AN ACTUAL SINGER IN A MUSICAL AND NOT GIVE HER A SONG?!
That’s just…it baffles me. Honestly. I think overall she sung two, maybe four lines in the whole film? You cast a musical, you get a famous pop star added to the cast…what were the producers thinking? I just don’t understand it at all, and as a result the film just seems like a cynical money grab. It’s promoted as a cheesy feel-good film but it made me feel hollow and sad. This is everything that’s wrong with movies. They thought they can slap on a thin plot around popular songs and that would produce bucketfuls of money. I hope they’re wrong and it flops because there’s nothing redeeming about this film at all, except a bit of a nostalgia trip, but then you might as well just go and listen to the songs on an 80s mix CD anyway.
This is just an awful, awful, awful film. There’s no attempt at a good story, the characters are unlikeable, it’s just bad. At one point a character remarks, “You make a drama out of nothing,” and that pretty much sums the film up. There’s no reason at all why anyone should care about anything going on in the film. It offers nothing to the viewer at all. There’s no heart or soul, just avoid this. And tell people to avoid it as well. And if you see it on DVD gather them all up and smash them into little pieces. And then send them into the sun. So they can all burn and be erased from culture.
man of yesterday 