Movie Review : Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022)
Authenticity in art is overrated. I get the appeal of being yourself and whatnot, but not everyone is interesting or relatable. Imagine if Prince sang folk ballads about his relationship to his mother? His music would lose its appeal. There's nothing wrong with lying to people as long as everyone's in on that lie. If Weird Al Yankovic would've made an earnest movie about his life, nobody would’ve given a flying fuck. But Weird Al being Weird Al, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is the high-effort shitposting we all know and love.
So, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is Weird Al (played by a low key awesome Daniel Radcliffe) telling his story more than the story of Weird Al being told from an objective point of view. There are parallels to his real life, but it quickly veers into what Weird Al does best: parody. In this version of his life, he’s filling up arenas, dating Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood) and Pablo Escobar (Arturo Castro) is obsessed with him. I don’t know what the exact truth about Welrd Al life is, but I’m sure it isn’t as entertaining as this.
The Problem With Authenticity
Weird Al Yankovic is quitessentially great at two things: playing the accordion and rewriting the lyrics of popular songs. That makes him dependent on other people’s creativity in order to exist and you get the sense from the screenplay (which Weird Al co-wrote) that it kind of always bothered him. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is about him reconciliating with the fact that his own self doesn't really matter or that it, at least, requires an already existing cultural production in order to express itself to its fullest extent.
My favorite scene in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story exploring this issue is the glorious pool scene, where he is challenged by the bassist of Queen John Deacon (David Dastmalchian) to improvise a parody of Another One Bites The Dust. This is funny because Weird Al is culturally more important than whoever played bass for Queen and that he answered the call with the same fire Eminem would’ve in 8 Mile and immediately turns down a spot at Live Aid right after. It mythologizes Weird Al’s creative magic.
Do we need to know how Weird Al writes songs? Absolutely fucking not. I’m certain it's boring as hell. What I want from Weird Al Yankovic as an audience is the type of delirium you get into when an old friend when you’re drinking beers and shooting the shit together and it’s exactly what I got. Sometimes not knowing the truth about someone is a great thing. Weird Al Yankovic is dependent on a cultural context to exist and to make sense and he appropriates that cultural context in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.
Authenticity is overrated is the story you’re telling is entertaining.
The Problem With Biopics
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story isn’t exactly relatable and it doesn't try to be. But it has a heart hiding behind all that colourful excess. Weird Al has a weird and extremely specific gift that he found a lucrative outlet for. That gift came through embracing the fact that he would not succeed conventionally and that embracing his unicity would be his only saving grace. If conventional biopics attempt to make you feel like you could do it too, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is telling you that you definitely can’t.
But that you have something else that’s unique about you and that it's on you to look for it. There's no one like Weird Al, but there's only one copy of you too. Just like Weird Al did by reinventing Michael Jackson, Madonna, Queen, Joan Jett and the others, you 100% have the right to incorporate elements from other cultural production in your art as long as you make it yours in the end. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is about 10% true, but it's also way more honest than most celebrity biopics out there.
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I love that you can only find Weird: The Al Yankovic Story on The Roku Channel. It's a throwback movie that doesn't try hard to be an emotional experience like most movies being released today, so it feels appropriate that you'd find it in the weirdest, most unexpected places. There's probably little reason to watch Weird: The Al Yankovic Story if you’re not already familiar with Weird Al and it really just a good time, but it was a great late night viewing with a couple of tall boys. It's not trying to be more than what it is.
Kevin Smith says it best n his podcast when talking about older films: "It's just a movie."
