One of the first cassettes (yes, cassette) I ever bought was Weird Al’s Dare to Be Stupid. A friend showed me the song Yoda from it, and as a Star Wars nerd, I had to have it. Much to my surprise, all the other songs on the album were great, and thus began my lifelong love of all things Weird Al. There literally hasn’t been a thing he’s made that I haven’t absolutely loved, so when I heard about Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, I was more than excited to get to see it, and I can say it was easily worth the wait. Not only did it meet and beat my high expectations, it’s one of the best movies of the year and easily the best biopic ever made.
It’s really difficult to write up any kind of plot synopsis because this isn’t your normal biopic. You see, while I am sure there is some truth to the story being told of Weird Al’s life, just like his songs, this is a parody of a film and not the real thing. Yes, he got his first accordion from a traveling salesman when he was a kid, and he very much did get his start with Dr. Demento, but interwoven throughout are plot lines that most likely or definitely didn’t happen. And this is where the fun begins.
If you’re a fan of UHF (and if not, you should be), you’ll be very much at home here because it almost feels like this is the spiritual successor to the 80s classic. Not just with the occasionally ludicrous story lines but also the random, over-the-top moments of cartoonish violence that are peppered into the various action scenes thrown in for good measure. If you never knew you needed to see Weird Al crash Pablo Escobar’s birthday party to get into a shootout to rescue a kidnapped Madonna, you’ll now wonder how you lived your life without it. From pool parties with Pee-Wee Herman and Divine to being angry at Michael Jackson for parodying his “original song,” Eat It, The Yankovic Story doesn’t just live up to the main character’s name, it revels in it.
And speaking of weird, it’s worth spending some time on the the actor portraying him. Daniel Radcliffe continues to show that there is a lot more to him than his turn in the Harry Potter movies that drove him to stardom. Granted, he doesn’t do any of the singing – he lip syncs, badly (which is a running gag throughout) – but the almost insane energy that the real life Al exudes comes through brilliantly in his performance. Whether he’s being serious, wacky, or any other range of emotions, it never feels like this is Radcliffe playing a role but more that you’re just seeing the character on screen. It’s rare that an actor is able to do this, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him come up for a lot of awards at the end of the year.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story takes everything we are used to in a biopic and turns it on its ear. While the plot structure of rise, fall, and rise again is the same as the rest, the way it sprinkles goofiness and a sense of madness into every moment makes you wonder why this hasn’t been done more often. Obviously, it was heavily influenced by Spinal Tap and Walk Hard, but considering this is loosely based on a real person, it just hits harder and funnier than anything in a long time, and will most likely be as impactful on future films in this genre as the aforementioned ones that inspired it. Much like the first Weird Al album I ever got, The Yankovic Story dares to be stupid and ends up being brilliant – exactly like the artist himself.