Everyone goes through their own unique music journey in life. When you combine my Nan’s specific love for Lou Reed’s Perfect Day, listening to Best of T.Rex disc one every holiday, and receiving several hours of French Techno from a cousin’s iTunes library, you could predict my taste would be a little odd. Naturally then, no one questioned when I requested Weird Al Yankovic’s Straight Outta’ Lynwood CD for Christmas one year. My parents had never heard of him, but the popularity of the platinum single White & Nerdy swarmed my school. It’s the first time I can remember being obsessed with an artist, delving into their discography on YouTube for hours on end. Alongside catchy beats and hilarious lyrics, his songs acted as an education in American pop culture. Weird Al’s parodies not only introduced me to The Strokes, The White Stripes and Rage Against The Machine (all featured in his Angry White Boy Polka) but also taught me about Jeopardy, pirating Lars Ulrich’s music and Tonya Harding – essential knowledge you’d all agree. Throw in his music videos filled with visual gags and Weird Al forms a significant portion of my taste today.
Bearing all of this in mind, you can imagine my anticipation when the trailer for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story dropped. Coincidentally released during the HardieWrites biopic season, I had unwittingly researched everything I needed for a film that was about to rip into them. Featuring excessive drinking & lewd behaviour that Yankovic avoided in real life, first-time director Eric Appel pays homage to Rocketman and The Doors by taking every trope to a ludicrous level in a deadpan style. Keeping the tone serious whilst being utterly absurd gets big laughs, but I most appreciate the quiet ones when you least expect it. Behind every joke there is usually an element of truth, you just have to figure out whether he actually did record his first song in a bathroom or went on a vengeful murderous rampage in the jungle.
Originally, Appel and Yankovic made the parody biopic as a YouTube video on the Funny Or Die channel with Aaron Paul as the titular weird one. For the feature, Daniel Radcliffe dons the Hawaiian shirt, continuing to branch out his career in the most experimental way possible. I encourage this behaviour too, as he has the range for playing the straight man and the crazy comic – here he has to do both. The wig/moustache/glasses combo fits the bill (straying far from the wizard franchise that won’t be named) with excellent accordion skills learnt from the master himself. The only nitpick I have is the singing voice which, ironically, had a bit too much Weird Al in it. Using a sound design blending technique, the mixing balance either weighed heavy on the artist’s side or their voices were so noticeably distinct from each other that I was distracted when transitioning to musical numbers. Yet, I still loved the songs enough to hear past it and enjoy Radcliffe perform Like A Surgeon in costume on stage.
Like many biopics, it’s this last point that determines the overall enjoyment of the film. I appreciated all of the references to Weird Al’s career and the amazing star-studded supporting cast such as Rainn Wilson, Will Forte and Jack Black. Evan Rachel Wood plays a great power-hungry Madonna who sways the accordionist, but these plot points were dragged out a bit too far. In similar fashion to the Nicholas Cage parody biopic released earlier this year, the initial strength of the comedy devolves the more off-the-rails it becomes. Where he may not have the general pull power that Cage has, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story still rewards dedicated fans and I can wholeheartedly say that this is the best parody music biopic released this year that I have seen.