Courtesy of TIFF
Before heading to the Toronto International Film Festival, where I knew I would be watching Weird: The Al Yankovic Story—the Weird Al movie starring Daniel Radcliffe as Weird Al—I did my research by watching Weird Al’s Behind the Music.
The episode is so charming mainly because of how the parody songwriter-slash-accordionist fails to fit into the classic rock-star mold. Whereas most installments of the VH1 series are laden with drama and drug use, Weird Al’s is about a smart boy who loved dorky comedy and somehow miraculously made an entire career out of it.
Weird, co-written by Yankovic and director Eric Appel, is not that story. It’s essentially a Weird Al parody of a biopic that happens to be about Weird Al. But in recasting Weird Al as a troubled genius with demons aplenty, it loses the absolute charm of its subject and creator. Sure, it’s clever at first, but after a while it starts to feel like you’re watching yet another tiresome biopic that hits the same beats as every other biopic—except this one is supposed to be fake and funny.