Weird: The Al Yankovic Story Movie Review

One of the main hits of the past Toronto Film Festival has traditionally become a musical biopic. However, “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” can hardly be called a biopic in the classical sense, because the plot is not based on the real story of the formation of a musician, but on a set of stereotypical postulates that, according to everyone’s belief, make a world-class star out of an ordinary person.

Al Yankovic himself is a completely existing figure, he is widely known in America as a parodist, singer and comedian, but almost unknown to viewers living outside of it. Yankovic never claimed the laurels of the second Freddie Mercury, preferring the role of a great artist to be the image of a jester and joker, entertaining people with intricate covers of popular English songs (Gangsta’s Paradise Coolio and Kilian Mash, Like a Virgin Madonna, Beat It Michael Jackson and many others). In his texts, Al, as a rule, frankly ridiculed the snobbish ideals of American culture, including cinema and television, but he did it completely without malice – with a slight flick on the forehead, with a share of good self-irony.

“Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” in this regard largely echoes the musician’s work, building the main plot according to the algorithm of world blockbusters, postmodernly ridiculing the narrow-mindedness, laziness and greed of Hollywood producers, endlessly selling the audience the same idea of ​​the “American dream”, where the world pop hits are born on the knee, and recognition, fame, wealth and worldwide love, like the horsemen of the Apocalypse, come into the life of the “chosen” artist like a bolt from the blue, suddenly and forever.

Like most standard biopics, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story begins with the protagonist’s unsightly childhood growing up in a dysfunctional family with an abusive father and a “cold” mother. Al (Daniel Radcliffe) grows more and more isolated from the real world and less and less willing to be himself, but the sudden support of friends and a sincere love for playing the accordion changes the worldview once and for all. Al patiently cultivates a talent for creating comic song parodies and secretly hopes to be accepted – because only in this way will he finally finally believe in himself.

The dotted line is the idea that, despite all the love that Al put into his songs, no one ever took him for a “real” artist. In this thesis lies the biggest misconception and the most bitter disappointment of the modern music industry, which is in an eternal fierce battle for originality, which, in fact, does not exist. It is natural for people to be inspired by each other – this is the very nature of creation, unlimited self-giving and open interaction with the outside world. Every pop hit, whether it’s Michael Jackson’s Beat It or John Lennon’s Imagine, contains a whole history of social universities that nurtured the inquisitive mind of its creator. It is for this reason that every dispute about the originality of a particular work, in fact, does not make any sense, because any art is a product of collective labor.

The otherness of Al lies in the conscious unwillingness to follow the stereotyped path of an artist – with a million lovers in love, a crisis of the god complex, betrayal of loved ones, depression and subsequent burnout (nevertheless, all this will be shown in one way or another in the film, as in any other reference biopic). Al wants to be himself and sing songs about bologna and rocky road ice cream, because among a million paths of self-realization, he chooses the one to which his heart and soul lie.