Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

Weird Al is a genius. You can think his humor is juvenile, his style dorky, but you cannot escape or deny the fact that the man has a musical ability that is unparalleled. His ability to play different styles of music and make them sound as authentic as those he is parody. Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo thought Weird Al’s “Dare To Be Stupid” sounded more like Devo than Devo did. That’s saying something. I’ve loved Al since I was a kid, but what I appreciate him has changed. I no longer just like the joke; I like the construction of it, the purpose behind it. And I think his genius is on full display in songs where he doesn’t just change lyrics to do something funny, but deconstructs the original song. “Smells Like Nirvana” and “Trapped In The Drive Thru” are my favorite parodies because they take aim at the songs they parody; “Nirvana” makes fun of the repetitive lyrics and unintelligible singing of Kurt Cobain, and “Drive Thru” mocks R Kelly’s bombastic 36-song melodrama to tell the mundane story of what a couple wants to do for dinner. Parody is funny. Satire is clever. Weird: The Al Yankovic story is 100% satire. It isn’t just a comedy; it is a deconstruction and thorough assassination of the template of modern music biopics, from Walk The Line to Bohemian Rhapsody. Those movies aren’t just content to tell a biography; drama has to be inflated, history distorted, timelines compressed, so there’s a story that fits the traditional three act structure (even if real life would be more than enough). Weird looks at that and says “what if we take all the cliches, blow them up 100 times as big, put in things that could never happen, and have the subject be the LAST person this would happen to?”. The world in which this movie exists equates Hawaiian shirts with drugs and polka parties with raves. It insists that Al wrote and released “Eat It” BEFORE Michael Jackson wrote and released “Beat It”, and that Jackson’s song is a parody of Al’s. It has Al’s first concert taking place at a CBGB’s-like punk bar. It takes a song his fans know was released in the mid 90’s and drops it into 1985. It is all of the cliches and tropes of a music biopic chewed up, spat out, and done in the most absurd and bombastic way possible. The satire and writing alone are wonderful. The direction manages to embrace and mock the weepy, Hallmark-style arch drama you see in those biopics. But the performances are what carry this over the top. Daniel Radcliffe disappears into this funhouse mirror version of Al, first as a naive young man trying to prove himself right and make his dad proud, and then later, succumbing to the ego-driven downward spiral before the last act reprieve. Somehow, Radcliffe managed to play it both silly and straight. I knew he was a good actor. A great actor, in fact. But there is serious skill in what he did in Weird. And the supporting cast is equally impressive, from Rainn Wilson’s turn as a mentor/manager Doctor Demento, Toby Huss as Al’s unhinged father, Evan Rachel Wood as bizarre, Machiavellian Madonna, and even Diedrich Bader doing narration as Al in a voice that sounds more like Batman. And Jack Black’s cameo as Wolfman Jack might be his greatest role ever. This might be Al’s masterpiece. There isn’t a moment of wasted screen time, not a second where this movie isn’t throwing something clever or … well … weird at you. It is impossible not to be entertained by this. In the wrong hands, this could’ve collapsed in on itself. But every element lined up to deliver something truly memorable and clever. You will never watch a music biopic the same way again.