Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
With its consistently witty subversions of music biopic conventions, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story accomplishes what Walk Hard failed to do.
A fitting parody of the parody songwriter’s rise to fame, Eric Appel’s film — co-written with Yankovic — lampoons genre clichés early and often, gleefully playing with people’s perceptions of the music industry, largely in regard to getting discovered and becoming famous.
Following a brief glimpse of the “debauchery” that will befall our hero down the line, Weird flashes back to portraits of the artist as a young man (played by Richard Aaron Anderson), living under the roof of hard-assed father Nick (Toby Huss) and a beleaguered mother secretly supportive of his accordion habits. The casting of Julianne Nicholson as Mary Yankovic is a good joke in its own right, considering her ubiquity in such roles, and is but one of many inspired selections in the all-star ensemble.
As Al’s skills grow, Daniel Radcliffe steps into the part, imbuing it with the kind of loose goofy confidence that the musician has cultivated over the past four-plus decades. But from a twist on the typical high school party to the writing of his first parody track, Weird is firmly here to poke holes in standard biopics, and most notably succeeds in its hilarious “recreations” of how some of Weird Al’s hits arose.
Though the filmmakers toss in the occasional dumb, ill-fitting moment of slapstick humor, their otherwise deadpan comedic style works wonders, particularly in a wonderfully drawn-out, straight-faced assertion that one of Al’s songs is actually an original — and its more famous cousin is actually a parody — and painting Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood) as a conniving Jezebel using Al for “The Yankovic Bump” and an eventual parody of one of her own songs.
Yankovic himself makes multiple memorable appearances as music exec Tony Scotti, and comically withstands the insults his brother Ben (Will Forte) lobs at Al. And if you can identify all of the famous faces at a cameo-filled pool party hosted by Al’s mentor, Dr. Demento (Rainn Wilson), you deserve a box set prize of Al’s entire catalog.
The combination of dry jokes, memorable tunes, and “revisionist history” results in a wild, joyful feeling of unpredictability, and while Weird abruptly ends right when the flow is at its peak, that choice feels intentional as well. Multiple surprises tucked away in the end credits help ease the pain of this raucous experience being over, as does the comforting knowledge that another viewing is only a click away.
Grade: B-plus. Rated TV-14. Available to stream on The Roku Channel
(Photo: The Roku Channel)
