Streep can sing, her co-stars not so much All the forced frivolity and faux fun in "Mamma Mia!" all the extruded squeals of delight -- it's just all . . . so . . . exhausting.

The wildly popular musical play has been manufactured into a movie that, based on an advance-screening audience's reaction, will also be wildly popular. Yet it is bereft of life, devoid of soul, constructed entirely of artifice.

Come to think of it, that's somehow perfect for a musical based on the songs of ABBA.

"Mamma Mia!" is a jukebox musical, a show built around the songs of a single pop music group -- in this instance ABBA, the glossy Swedish pop group of the'70s. As is always the case in jukebox musicals, the story has to be created to fit the existing songs, rather than the other way around. Invariably, the result is strained and awkward.

The story to "Mamma Mia!" is more awkward than most. Amanda Seyfried stars as 20-year-old Sophie, who is about to be married on her picturesque Greek Isle. She wants to invite her father, but she doesn't know who he is -- as a young woman, her mother had been, um, feisty, and any one of three summer romances could potentially be the papa.

In that golden, sun-kissed summer two decades ago, Streep would have been 39, but never mind -- what matters is that Sophie invites the three men to her wedding. And then nothing happens.

Sophie tries to hide the men (Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard), from her mother, and then Mom sees them, and nothing comes of it. Mom tries to hide the fact that one of the three is Sophie's father, and Sophie already knows it, and nothing comes of that, either.

Instead of a plot, we have songs. Say what you will about the songs of ABBA and disco in general, but the music certainly resonates with a large segment of the audience. Even when the accents fall on the wrong syllable, the rhymes are false and the lyrics nonsensical, the songs have to carry the show, and so do the singers.

Streep has always been an able singer. Seyfried's voice is pleasing enough, but has been overproduced. Firth can carry a tune, Skarsgard cannot and poor Brosnan is still remarkably handsome and an intuitive actor, but the man should never be asked to attempt to vocalize ever again.

As cruel fate would have it, he gets the most songs of all the men.

Phyllida Lloyd directs with no sense of cinema, extracting false-note performances out of everyone -- even Streep, in the early scenes. Her work behind the camera has more than its share of maybe-the-audience-won't-notice-it moments, ranging from issues with color and light to shadows over faces to actually catching Streep glancing at the camera.

Catherine Johnson's script thuds with a disheartening regularity ("I feel like there is a part of me missing, and when I find my dad everything will fall into place"), and Anthony Van Laast's choreography is hokey (jumping on a bed in slow motion) more often than brilliant (Streep leading a joyful chorus line of island women).

The love you gave the film, nothing else can save the film, SOS. Whatever that means. ABBA and SOS