Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

Dir Eric Appel

Written by Al Yankovic, Eric Appel

Daniel Radcliffe, Evan Rachel Wood, Rainn Wilson, Arturo Castro, Toby Huss, Julianne Nicholson, Spenser Treat Clark.

A fictional version of events of the life of Al Yankovic, from his early life of a child who loves music, but lives with parents who hate it, to an adult (Radcliffe) who has a meteoric rise to fame.

From the get go, this film clearly has no intention of taking itself seriously, with Tom Lennon’s hilarious cameo as a door to door accordion salesman. As a teenager, he defies his parents by going to ‘polka’ parties, and beginning his love of changing the words to popular songs.

After creating the hit song ‘My Bologna’ after the song ‘My Sharona’ He goes on to meet a variety of characters throughout his adulthood, including his childhood idol Dr Dementor (Wilson), but keeps getting knocked back for a record deal by the Scotti brothers (played by Will Forte and the actual Al Yankovic).

The big up for me was Castro as the fictionalised version of Pablo Escabar, who is a big fan of Al. Castro is a hilarious comedian, and you should check out his sketch show Alternatino.

The third act conversations between Al and his parents felt a little on the nose, and added ‘emotion’ where it really wasn’t needed.

While I get the intention of what they were trying to do, and I did genuinely laugh at some of the moments, this wasn’t my type of movie. Radcliffe was fine as Al (and his portrayal is the perfect ‘fictionalisation’ due to the major height difference between the real Yankovic). I haven’t overly immersed myself in Yankovic’s history, and discography so because of these feelings, my rating is a little lower. For those who are more familiar, I’m sure this would be a four to five out of five.

3/5