Directed by: Eric Appel
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Evan Rachel Wood, Rainn Wilson, Toby Huss
Rated TV-14, 108 minutes
“Weird Al” Yankovic is a one-man institution. Few musicians have lasted longer; he preceded Guns N’ Roses, Whitney Houston, and Bon Jovi. His career began before there were any “Terminator” or “Indiana Jones” movies, before LeBron James or Pete Buttigieg was born. In 2014, his 14th album, “Mandatory Fun,” became his first to reach the top of the Billboard charts, affirming his stature at an age when many pop stars are closing up shop. Now, after four storied decades of pop parodies and accordion-driven polka medleys and original comic songs, “Weird Al” has become the subject of a star-studded biopic, so that we all might understand the events that made his novelty act a staple of American pop culture.
For example, who can forget Yankovic’s torrid love affair with Madonna, or his sold-out residency at Madison Square Garden, or his violent confrontation with the Colombian drug cartels? With the blessings of Andy Warhol and Salvador Dalí, with the envy of Queen and Michael Jackson, “Weird Al,” as we all surely remember, took the world by storm, topping the charts with songs like his lunchmeat-inspired rendition of The Knack’s “My Sharona” (“My Bologna”) and his public transit opus “Another One Rides the Bus,” based on Queen’s pedestrian flop “Another One Bites the Dust.”
These are among the key events and musical landmarks covered in the riotous “Weird,” which Yankovic himself co-wrote (to ensure the film’s accuracy, one can only assume). Played by Daniel Radcliffe of the little-known “Harry Potter” movies with the freewheeling energy of a slap-happy kid staying up way past his bedtime, the Yankovic we meet in “Weird” is the quintessential rockstar. Drugs, sex, money, alcohol, fame, teenage polka parties shut down by the police—you name it, Yankovic’s been there, with his trademark curly helmet of hair and his massive glasses and his trusty accordion.
At the heart of Al’s screwball story, though, is deep sadness. In flashbacks we see Yankovic trying to impress his father (Toby Huss, “Halt and Catch Fire”), a conservative blue-collar factory worker who wishes his weird son would just grow up already and come to work at the factory, making whatever it is they make there, instead of making music. Even as Al’s career takes off, from his early dealings with the radio personality Dr. Demento (Rainn Wilson, “The Office”) to his quintuple-platinum debut album to his explosive tryst with Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood, “Thirteen”), his father remains unmoved. A lesser man might have succumbed to this kind of rejection, might have wallowed in his pain instead of harnessing it for his art. But this is “Weird Al” Yankovic we’re talking about, who has wrung humor from even the darkest songs that populate the charts. How else would we have masterpieces like “Amish Paradise”?
Spanning a relatively short time in Yankovic’s life, this effort from Eric Appel (“Son of Zorn”) is a curious biography, full of strange details from a strange career. In one scene he performs a song while his bandmate kneels on the ground playing the accordion case like a drum, recalling Yankovic’s first televised appearance in 1981; another scene shows him recording his first single, as he truly did, in a public restroom. And sure, maybe some of the details of his life get a little Hollywood embellishment—his role in the takedown of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar may be slightly exaggerated—but “Weird,” if not especially profound or emotionally sincere, still boasts just as much character depth and behind-the-scenes intrigue as other biopics that don’t even try to lighten the mood (looking at you, “Bohemian Rhapsody”).
Perhaps the film most analogous to “Weird” is James Franco’s “The Disaster Artist,” another oddball biopic, which traced the origins of the ludicrous filmmaker Tommy Wiseau. But where that film had a sour note lingering beneath the surface, questioning our right to mockery, “Weird” is all sweet idiocy, like the dulcet tones of a well-tuned accordion. Full of celebrity cameos and good-natured jabs at celebrity, and released for free on the little-heralded streaming service The Roku Channel (which, I admit, I hadn’t even heard of, despite owning a Roku TV myself), “Weird” is as enjoyable a novelty as its sophomoric subject. “Dare to be stupid,” goes one typical early “Weird Al” song, a stylistic parody of the new wave group Devo. “I’ll show you how.”
Originally published in The Harvard Press on 11/18/22.