Ferrell at his irritating best
Bogged down by Will Ferrell, Eurovision sings the wrong tune, writes Jen Yamato.
WILL FERRELL and Rachel McAdams belt out cheesy pop earworms as fictional Icelandic dreamers in Netflix's Eurovision Song Contest: The Story
of Fire Saga, channelling the camp spirit with which the actual Eurovision — an international songwriting competition started in 1956 — has been synonymous for decades. But one of the film's most irritating choices is also its central premise: In the year 2020, is there really any charm to be mined from the exploits of the bumbling, buffoonish manchild?
Ferrell, of course, has made the trope his breadandbutter, here adding Lars Erickssong to his oeuvre of lovable oafs. The hypersensitive musician, who hails from a tiny fishing village in Iceland, has hung a lifetime of daddy issues upon winning the overthetop Eurovision competition. He idolises Eurovision '74 winners ABBA (who doesn't?) and pens catchy but shallow songs with titles such as Volcano Man and Jaja
Ding Dong while trying, and failing, to win over his disapproving father (Pierce Brosnan).
The only one who believes in Lars is his earthy and kind bandmate Sigrit Ericksdottir (McAdams), a manic Nordic dream girl resplendent in chunky Scandinavian knits and oceansprayed tresses. She also believes that murderous magical elves grant wishes. Sigrit is a talented vocalist who hasn't yet found her voice, the true artist in the duo. But as the script by Ferrell and Andrew Steele insists, she's also so desperately in love with Lars that she makes his Eurovision dreams her own in the hope that, if they win the contest, he'll finally date her.
It's an insult to female artists everywhere, not to mention thankless work on McAdams' part, that Eurovision clings to such outdated gender dynamics and tired formula. As its thin premise stretches out over a bloated 123minute runtime, the question festers. Why must Sigrit's dreams, her ambitions, her wants and desires be tied to the ambitions of an egocentric fool? It's
the kind of story conceit, masked under the guise of a dualfocus musical romance, that serves only one protagonist: the stubbornly idiotic man.
Alas, tied to Lars she is, and together they are Fire Saga, the most ridiculed musical act in all of Iceland. By some mix of chance, fate or magical elves, the underdog duo winds up representing
Iceland, to the chagrin of a villainous bank executive
(played by Swedish actor Mikael Persbrandt), and the film diverts its very American lens on to Eurovision itself — although exactly what any of that means to Lars or Sigrit on a deeper level is left superficial and unexplored.
Given seemingly ample resources, director David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) and cinematographer Danny Cohen (The
King's Speech) mount handsome sequences across the continent. The action travels from the craggy coastal climes of Husavik, Iceland, to the cobbled streets of Edinburgh, Scotland, where wideeyed naifs Lars and Sigrit find themselves thrust into a world of LEDfilled arenas, ginormous productions and glamorous mansion parties.
Colourful contestants enter the picture, such
as Alexander Lemtov (Dan Stevens), a seductive Russian singer who takes a shine to Sigrit, and Greek diva Mita Xenakis (Melissanthi Mahut), who sets her sights on Lars.
Eurovision picks up steam as it expands in scope, leaning into the big personalities and exuberantly flashy theatrics. Dancing somewhere between mimicry and gentle mockery — and partly filmed at the 2019 Eurovision — numbers such as Lemtov's bullwhipcracking Lion of Love evoke the circuslike theatrics recognisable to anyone who's watched the annual event.
With few exceptions, however, the satire is too blunted to say anything substantive about Eurovision, an event watched by hundreds of millions across the globe each year, or the artists who fuel its zaniness — artists who, like Fire Saga, dream of winning the top prize for either personal glory or national pride.
Inspired moments can be found throughout Eurovision if you have the patience: pop queen Demi Lovato plays Katiana, a polished Icelandic songstress favoured to win the contest, in a cameo that turns genuinely, and refreshingly, surprising. Eurovision '17 winner Salvador Sobral, of Portugal, appears as an Edinburgh busker performing his lovely winning tune, Amar
pelois Dois. And the showstopping ballad Husavik (Hometown) sung by Swedish singer Molly Sanden, whose vocals are blended into McAdams' for most of Sigrit's performances, is a beautiful, soaring number that lingers.
Eurovision leaves you wanting more for Sigrit, someone who deserves to dream bigger than the screenplay allows. But you also want more for the handful of actual Eurovision contestants who pop up briefly in singing cameos, reduced to musical miseenscene and adding much of the film's representation of diversity as background to Ferrell's antics.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga is available to stream on Netflix.