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One really has to work at it to dislike “Weird Al” Yankovic. The accordion-wielding musician who somehow became an icon of the 1980s and 90s with his moronic parody versions of popular songs is largely impervious to criticism. He’s annoying, you say? No duh, would be the appropriate response. And after decades of delighting fans (and wrenching begrudging chuckles out of others) there are few performers more deserving of a career-topping victory lap.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is a light and amusing romp very in much in tune with the dorky-and-proud aesthetic that has made its subject an unlikely household name. It’s also about as real of a movie as a “Weird Al” album is real music. I mean, sure, there are images on screen, just like instruments were put to tape, but for heaven’s sake let’s not scrutinize the craft in this too heavily. It’s a collection of jokes, some a little more clever than others, but when that’s done well, it’s well enough. Plus some polka.
Co-written and co-produced by Yankovic himself (his first significant exercise in motion pictures since his daffy 1989 sketch collection UHF) the low-budget faux-biopic has two tremendous aces up its sleeve. Firstly, it has zero interest in telling you the actual Al Yankovic story; any honest-to-polka facts about the parodist’s life that made it into the movie seem to be purely coincidental. (It only takes a few minutes before that’s abundantly clear, with Toby Huss as Papa Yankovic beating the snot out of a traveling accordion salesman for trying to bring “the devil’s squeeze box” into his home.) Second, there’s Yankovic passing the signature Bermuda shirt, enormous glasses, and shag of curly hair to Daniel Radcliffe.
Radcliffe’s zeal for the role is contagious. He’s basically doing an extended Saturday Night Live appearance, but he commands your attention as the driven song parodist who becomes a multi-platinum-selling artist with the ego and platinum jewelry to match. Many of the story beats follow typical musical biopics (indeed, this whole project began as a fake trailer that Yankovic used to psych up the audience on tour) so there’s an added level of parody here. Alas, one can not help but compare Weird at times to Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, but the fact is that occasionally Weird tells the truth. “My Bologna,” Yankovic’s parody of The Knack’s “My Sharona” was, indeed, recorded in a bathroom for its good acoustics.
While Weird (and Yankovic’s career) has one foot in the extremely popular—Evan Rachel Wood is very funny as Madonna, who, in this version of reality, becomes Yankovic’s lover/puppet master/eventual…well, you’ll see—it maintains a tight connection to its MAD magazine roots. Like this year’s Funny Pages, which reminds viewers that, until only very recently, comic books were for outcasts only, Weird is a nice window into a pop culture freakshow of a mostly gone era. Yankovic’s real-life mentor, Dr. Demento (a DJ, not a doctor), played by Rainn Wilson, is hilarious as the ringleader of a band of social reprobates. A party scene is a who’s who of comics and celebs portraying legends: Conan O’Brien as Andy Warhol is just one of about a dozen.
While Weird goes down easy (and has a few out-of-nowhere zings that really kill) it does drag at times. I mean, has anyone listened to an entire “Weird Al” album in one sitting? The polka medleys are great, but eventually, they get tiresome. A tangent in which “Weird Al” and Madonna race off to fight Pablo Escobar is a great moment to head into the kitchen to see if there’s any leftover rocky road.
It’s also perfectly “Weird Al” that this movie should be released by The Roku Channel, current home to all the orphaned Quibi content. (Seriously.) At first blush this may sound quite limiting—as if Yankovic’s 1984 breakout In 3-D were only available on 8-track—but this is apparently not the case. A publicist has assured me that one need not have a Roku device to watch the movie, all you need to do is go to their website. You don’t even have to set up an account if you don’t want to. (And there will be ads in there either way.)
To be honest, that’s a shame. You should need a special talisman of sorts, like a decoder ring, or knowledge of the secrets from a MAD fold-in, to gain access. Like the young Alfie Yankovic secretly tuning in to Dr. Demento on his transistor radio, the idea of misfit moths working a little extra-hard to find this weird flame is the effort that’s missing in a lot of comedy these days. And it’s what drove “Weird Al” to become the … whatever the heck it is that he eventually became. You don’t need to be a fan of the accordion-toting Yankovic to get some enjoyment and laughs out of the gleefully absurd Weird, but it sure wouldn’t hurt either.
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Jordan Hoffman
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