Mamma Mia 2 plot hole: What years are the two films set?

4 June 2021, 15:07

With all the hilarious quotes and singalong fun, it's easy to forget when the Mamma Mia films actually take place.

While the first movie never specifically specifies when it is set, the second movie sheds some light on the subject, and this throws up a few plot holes if you think about it for too long!

The flashbacks of Here We Go Again takes place in 1979, when Donna gets pregnant with her daughter Sophie.

As Sophie is 20 in the first movie, this means it must be around 1999.

Here We Go Again must take place five years later, as Sophie states she is 25, meaning that it should be around 2004.

That's despite the fact that the films had a 10-year gap, meaning that all the characters have 2018-era gadgets and cars and the like.

And then there's Sophie's grandmother Ruby - played by Cher. She reveals that she had a romance with her old lover Fernando in 1959.

In real life, Cher is only three years older than her on-screen daughter Meryl Streep as Donna. Assuming Donna graduated in her mid-20s, she would have been in her mid-40s in the first film (Meryl was nearly 60 when she filmed the first film).

Let's say Ruby was in her late teens in 1959, that would make her around 65 by the events of the second movie.

As Doctor Who might say, it's all a bit of a time-wimey mess, but we love it!

We smell a sequel set in the 1950s...