Ferrell dials down crazy in comedy

AS WILL Ferrell movies go, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga ranks somewhere in that vast, grey, paunchy middle area, perhaps wedged just above the waistband of Zoolander 2 but just below the belly button of Kicking and Screaming. If the movie, about an inept Icelandic music duo with dreams of winning the annual Eurovision song contest, fails to achieve the inspired lunacy of an Anchorman, it is nevertheless nowhere near as bad as, say, Holmes and Watson.

And maybe that’s all we need, in this summer of Covid-19, when even an unexceptional Will Ferrell comedy is better than none at all.

Ferrell plays Lars, a singer whose childhood dream has been to make it to Eurovision, an international singing competition. With its chief claim to fame being the 1974 win by ABBA, and Celine Dion’s win in 1988, it is mostly known for its propensity for synth-heavy power ballads by preening performers you’ve never heard of.

It is in 1974 that Eurovision opens, with the Swedish band

ABBA’S Waterloo playing on a TV in Husavik, Iceland, inspiring a young Lars to dreams of pop stardom. Fast forward to the present day, with Lars, sporting a mane of Fabio-esque hair, rehearsing with his platonic singing partner Sigrit (Rachel Mcadams), who, predictably, has always loved him.

Their unrequited romance is a necessary through-line, but it provides more padding than genuine pleasure. A sub-plot involves the estrangement between Lars and his emotionally withholding father (Pierce Brosnan), who calls his son an “idiot”.

The jokes, such as they are, have more to do with the cheesiness of Lars and Sigrit’s act, known as Fire Saga, and their almost miraculous path from Husavik to Edinburgh, Scotland, where the Eurovision contest is being held. There, through a fluke involving a boat explosion, Lars and Sigrit find themselves competing in the semi-finals against singers much, much more talented than they are (if no less bombastic).

These include Dan Stevens’s Alexander Lemtov, a Russian bassoprofundo sleazeball with blue eyes only for Sigrit.

Singer Demi Lovato makes a brief cameo as an Icelandic pop star killed in the boat explosion, but her appearances are mostly as a bloodied, armless ghost.

Speaking of wasted opportunity, there’s plenty of fodder here to make fun of Eurovision, but it’s hampered by the fact that many Americans don’t really know anything about the contest. In any case, neither the film’s writers, Ferrell and Saturday Night Live veteran Andrew Steele nor its director, David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers), seem especially interested in making a Spinal Tap-style parody.

At heart, Eurovison seems content to be more dumb rom-com than sharp music satire.

Surely there are worse ways to spend time than with Ferrell, in metallic silver eye make-up and a Viking helmet, singing something called Volcano Man.

But as over the top as that sounds, I can’t help feeling that there isn’t nearly enough of it, and that the actor just isn’t trying very hard. | The Washington Post

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