Starring: Hannah Arterton, Annabel Scholey, Giulio Berruti
Three years after a whirlwind romance on the Italian coast, Taylor (Arterton) returns there for the wedding of her sister, Maddie (Scholey). The husband happens to be Raf (Berruti), Taylor's old Italian flame. Meanwhile, Maddie does her best dissuade the advances of her ex-boyfriend (Greg Wise), all set to a sequence of 80's pop hit musical numbers.
Mama mia! It's rather hard to believe this film actually exists and yet there it is. Walking On Sunshine was drifting around the pre-production ether for a while before this final result. Originally looking to star Aussie pop sensation Kylie Minogue and Les Miserables' Samantha Barks, what has resulted is a film that really makes you wonder how this film survived such a long crawl to the big screen, not helped by being a pretty blatant Mama Mia cash-in. Since Mama Mia's big success, a few jukebox musicals have arisen. Rock Of Ages, based around 80's rock music was a patchy affair that ultimately fumbled at the box office. Also, not forgetting Sunshine On Leith, the Proclaimers musical that was actually fairly good, even if part of that was he bizarre novelty of a musical film based around the songs of The Proclaimers.
Walking On Sunshine is a parade of 80's hits with a rather uninteresting and predictable wedding plot thrown haphazardly into the fray like an unfortunate male bystander encountering a particularly rowdy hen night. Some of the songs fare better than others for different reasons. A take on Don't You Want Me Baby by Human League is decently staged and, for all its sentimentality, The Bangles' Eternal Flame is a genuinely good piece of music. However, across all the songs is an overly-slick sheen that drains a lot of passion and energy into something extremely sanitised. It also doesn't help matters that numbers are often crowbarred into the action at abrupt turns, resulting in some very unnatural transitions, though this eases up as the film goes on.
The direction is also pretty flawed and whilst there is a little energy bouncing along, it's very clear that the emphasis is on the music and not on the performances. Annabel Scholey perhaps does the best acting job in the cast, but the acting is aimless and falls back on either overly-broad strokes or being emotionally lacking. Another problem is how to deal with the characters. Although there are some rectifications, Hannah Arterton's Taylor does become almost irredeemably self-centred for a main character and how Greg Wise's character of Doug was never arrested for his rather disturbing attempts at "seduction" will remain a mystery to the ages.
This film desperately tries to be Mama Mia, but it's not. Mama Mia is not the best musical film of all time but it's a decent musical. Those who complained about Pierce Brosnan not being a good enough singer missed the point. The point was to be swept up in the fun and energy of it all, and a bit of intentional campiness came as part of that. Walking On Sunshine is like Mama Mia without the Brosnan dimension. What's left is a film that whilst perhaps a little fun if certain libations are involved, is far too glossy for its own good.
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