COME FOR THE COMEDY, STAY FOR THE MUSIC
Fire Saga’s sum of its parts reigns supreme
I’m usually quite sceptical when it comes to Will Ferrell’s movies. Although I think he’s a fairly funny guy, I also know that his trademark over the top blustering slapstick sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. But since
the new musical comedy Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga was directed by David Dobkin, who directed the decent Wedding Crashers
(2005), and with Ferrell who co-wrote and produced the film, I decided to give this new Netflix feature a try. While I don’t think this comedy is necessarily funny, the production value, the pacing, the music and choreography are surprisingly well done. And especially the romcom of the two lead characters Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams is sweet, heartfelt, and definitely worth the watch.
In Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga, Ferrell and McAdams play childhood best friends, Lars Erickssong and Sigrit Ericksdottir, who grew up to become an aspiring Icelandic singing duo Fire Saga. They have been dreaming of performing at Europe’s largest singing competition show Eurovision
Song Contest and are suddenly given the opportunity of a lifetime to represent their country. Pierce Brosnan, Dan Stevens, Demi Lovato and Graham Norton also star.
If you aren’t from Europe, then you may not be familiar with the competition, but to those who live in Europe, Eurovision is a big deal event that has been around for over 60 years. It’s kind of like The Voice, but on a much grander scale. And as the movie title suggests, this partly is an advertising promotion for the song contest and partly a tourism campaign for Iceland, which was a surprise to me as the film is full of jokes that particularly make fun of Icelandic culture, such as their accent, cheesy Euro dance, or how local people worship elves.
The cinematography and visuals throughout the film are very impressive. And as the film is about music, almost every scene feels like a music video. Sometimes it’s frenetic and moving. Other times it’s calm and peaceful. Then there’s the gorgeous scenery of Iceland and Scotland — the kind of views we don’t get to see often in Hollywood movies.
The musical numbers are a lot of fun, with jump cuts of various singers performing different songs in one scene, and it works really well. Especially one of the highlight tracks, a piano ballad called My Hometown sung by the McAdams character towards the end that could easily give you chills.
The film’s main focus centres on Ferrell’s Lars, a middle-aged man who’s still chasing his childhood dream of winning the contest and being a successful singer. But I found other subplots also interesting, such as the emotional story between Lars and his father played by Pierce Brosnan whose approbation he seeks. But his father doesn’t respect him or believe in what he’s doing. Former 007 actor Brosnan does a good job as this dream-crushing character. The man has no compassion, no allowance for his son to dream. Another standout performance belongs to Dan Stevens as the Russian singer, Alexander Lemtov. His ridiculously self-absorbed character stole the comic side of the show. And with a character like Alexander, it is admirable that the film doesn’t shy away from the recent Eurovision controversy involving Russia’s homophobia and clearly the film champions the competition’s campaign for inclusivity by delivering several LGBTI cameos.
The odd romance between Ferrell and McAdams is the wheel that keeps the story going and the two stars somehow make it work. While it’s very predictable, that’s not necessary a bad thing. I enjoyed McAdams’ performance as the girl who’s longing for the man’s affection, but the man’s ambition for something else always gets in the way — a kind of girlfriend character you root for.
Overall, if you like music-themed movies, then you will enjoy Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga.
Even though it doesn’t quite capture the magic of Ferrell’s early movies, and the comedy notes fall a little flat in places, the film delivers enough of a sincere and heartwarming love story to make up for it.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga
Starring Will Ferrell, Rachel McAdams, Dan Stevens Directed by David Dobkin Now streaming on Netflix