Let me tell you a brief story about an unseasonably cold September day, when I’d had a dog of a shift in the office and was tired, fed up, feeling sorry for myself and far off a sunny disposition. I thought about my commute home which happens to take me past an independent cinema (handy, as I am a lover of films and like to get to the flicks at least once a week). Mamma Mia! had been out for a couple of months and was showing at my conveniently located picture house but, frankly, I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing it. At least not until it quickly became an even bigger phenomenon that its source West End musical, raking in over half-a-billion dollars worldwide and becoming, at the time, the second-biggest grossing film of all time in the UK (since my viewing it has overtaken Titanic’s £69m UK haul). Clearly, something remarkable was going on and I became curious to see this astonishingly successful film if only to investigate what all the fuss was about. That it had also garnered a reputation as the feelgood flick of the year with the very sunny disposition which I was lacking was enough, on my bad day at the office, to persuade me to interrupt my journey home and give it a try.

So, did it put a smile on my face? The straight answer is yes, it did indeed lighten my mood and made me feel better about things and gave me warm, fuzzy feelings and all that goes with them. But here’s a different question: do I think it’s a good film? Well, from a purely technical perspective, no, I don’t think it’s impressive at all. Virtually all of the reviews I’ve read – which cover a continuum starting at adoring and sliding all the way to somewhere close to downright disgusted – are in broad agreement that Mamma Mia! is not a particularly well-made film. Many agree that it has an affecting campness, but – and this is where the pro- and anti- camps seem to part company – disagree on whether that quality is actually favourable or not. From that divergence on, favourable reviews of Mamma Mia! tend to mention that it is cute, clean, colourful fun, whereas the naysayers tend to denounce it as sickly, tacky, lightweight nonsense with added butcherings of ABBA’s almost sacredly-revered pop numbers. However, what they have in common is some bemusement at how it’s been so phenomenally successful.

Obvious answers mooted by reviewers are the film’s trans-generational appeal and the popularity and sparkling reputation of the stage show. But that, to me, explains only part of its success. What struck me shortly after film had so gloriously lifted my spirits was that Mamma Mia!’s admirers and tomato-throwers may both have missed something:that the film’s considerable number of fallibilities are, paradoxically, the reasons for its staggering success.

Let me explain. Yes, Mamma Mia! is not super-proficiently shot or directed by Phyllidia Lloyd (who also helmed the stage version); yes, the performances are all self-consciously giddy and melodramatic; yes, the singing from certain cast members (!!COUGHPierce BrosnanCOUGH!!) is sub-Dog-And-Duck-karaoke standard; yes, the plot is slight, silly and laughably implausible and yes, the whole affair often borders on the tacky. Yet I found its undeniable joie de vivre hard – no, make that impossible – to resist.

How did that happen? Well, this is where I think I know the secret of its success. Aside from the attractiveness of the glamorous, sunny location of a picturesque Greek Island and the pretty men and women who make up the main characters, I think this film appeals to our sense of our own fallibilities, especially as for most of its running time we witness A-list actors like Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan basically making asses of themselves, knowing they’re making asses of themselves and – most of all – enjoying every minute of it. I think this is one of the key ingredients that has made Mamma Mia! so palatable to such a wide audience.

For me Mamma Mia!, by accident or design, is something of a triumph in more than one way. It’s moderately flawed, knows it, but is determined to have fun anyway. Particularly as we wallow in worldwide economic doom and gloom, I’d say that such a positive and optimistic philosophy is beyond value. And a film like Mamma Mia! having the better part of $1 billion in the kitty is proof for me that smiling through recessions and credit crunches and market crashes isn’t impossible. Especially if you buy the DVD…