There's a point during Weird: The Al Yankovic Story where "Weird Al" Yankovic as the narrator delivers the following line with all the serious gravitas found in one of those typical awards-bait music docs:
"Was I a parody singer? An original artist? The most dangerous assassin in the world?"
If you're only looking for the actual life story of the king of parody music, you won't find anything resembling that with Weird. If you're OK with a zany fanfic version of Weird Al's early heyday in the '80s penned by the man himself and director Eric Appel, then one can have an extremely fun time with Weird.
The story follows Yankovic (Daniel Radliffe) growing up in an repressive household, only to pick up the accordion, start replacing lyrics in popular songs with funny ones, and eventually becoming the biggest recording star of all-time (yes, in the fantasy world of Weird, Yankovic is someone who can sell out Madison Square Garden for 25 straight nights and is far more successful than the acts he parodies). Along the way Al gets caught up in a whirlwind romance with Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood), portrayed as a fiery jezebel who will do anything for money and power.
While making fun of the exhaustingly tropey genre that is musical biopics isn't a novel idea, the approach Weird takes maximizes the silliness. The wonderfully satirical Walk Hard broke down the cliches extremely well, almost winking at the audience every time it over-the-top mocked an overwrought trope like childhood trauma (in Walk Hard's case, one's brother getting sawed in half). Comparatively, Weird sort of goes through all the traditional beats as if it were a serious musical biopic, but fills all those beats with truly absurd things that the characters treat as totally normal. For example, when a young Yankovic is having a dinner table conversation with his parents about wanting to write parody songs, his dad (Toby Huss) becomes enraged at the prospect before his mom (Julianne Nicholson) shuts down the conversation by saying (with a straight face), "We agreed it would be best for all of us if you just stop being who you are and doing the things you love."
In the world of Weird, instead of the "introduction to drugs" biopic scene, Al gets taken to a high school party... only to find out it's literally a polka party, where all the teens know the names of polka greats, some girls are in Bavarian polka outfits, and he gets peer pressured into playing the accordion in front of his peers. Director Appel never allows the characters to have a self-aware moment of how strange all these occurrences are, which allows the zaniness to only ramp up as the film progresses.
The lack of seriousness in every aspect of the film carries over to the actors, who seem to be having a total blast with the campy lunacy the script offers. Radcliffe devours the titular role with an appropriately misplaced solemnity — as if he were an actor in an Oscar-bait role. This only heightens the humor when the highs are treating the writing of "My Balogna" like divine inspiration and the lows find him in Jim Morrison-like drunken stupor, about to "whip it out" on stage... his accordion, that is. Wood is a treat as the over-the-top manipulative Madonna, who desperately wants Al to parody one of her songs so she can become a bigger star. She essentially acts as the devil on Yankovic's shoulder, leading to kidnappings, drug cartels and other shenanigans.
The film is also a cameo smorgasbord, especially for comedy nerds. In one scene, comedy disc jockey Dr. Demento (Rainn Wilson) invites Al over for a backyard pool party jam-packed with famous faces playing iconic stars from the era — what good '80s pool party wouldn't include Andy Warhol, Alice Cooper, Pee Wee Herman, Elton John, Wolfman Jack, Gallagher, Divine and Salvador Dalí, after all?
Weird certainly will hit home more with Weird Al devotees, as it's littered with references to his catalog and career, but the sheer comedic commitment should still land with a broader audience. It's fitting that a man who spent his illustrious career replacing words in songs for comedic effect would also be eager to replace the facts of his life to get even more laughs. ♦
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
