Out sick with the school plague and anticipating NAHS’s upcoming school play, I recently watched Mamma Mia. During the movie, I had an epiphany of empathy, wherein I imagined myself trying to pick my father out of a lineup. Who would I choose? What would his identity tell me about myself? Would I get it right? I took it for granted that I know my dad’s identity, but now I recognize what a huge piece of information that is. When you have knowledge, sometimes you can’t grasp why those who don’t want it so badly. 

Most humans want to know who they are, where they come from, and why. In Mamma Mia, 20-year-old Sophie is a marooned sailor on a timeless Greek island. Her life is on pause, like those of her archetypal ancestors, and she cannot move on until she resolves the one question that irks her: who is her dad? Sky, her fiancé, does not consciously understand her impulse, but he shares it- he wants to “find” himself. Other characters search for love or family, or revelation. Donna’s three summer loves have never really left the island, not mentally, and they return to satisfy that curiosity.

Fortunately, Sophie locates her missing piece, the kernel of truth that if she knows only then she will be complete. The answer(s) are unexpected, but they are nevertheless liberating. (“Typical, isn’t it? You wait 20 years for a dad and then three come along at once.”) The others are rewarded with answers, too, all achieving closure through exploration. 

The moral of Mamma Mia, then, is to ask the question and accept unorthodox answers. Don’t wait twenty years. Don’t compensate with a marriage or with a job if that’s not what you really need or want. The sooner you address the question, the sooner you get an answer- then you are free.

Suppose there is no answer? No matter how outlandish it is, or how terrible it is, we would rather there be one than confront the possibility that no one took the time to carefully manufacture our circumstances. If there is no reason and no method, we are truly at the whims of a universe that does not care about or even know us. But according to Mamma Mia, the universe provides not one father but three, a dance party at the end, and a man for anybody who wants one. Mamma Mia says there is an explanation for everyone, a method to the madness, a purpose to our past, and a path for our future. We just have to find it.