Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga - Will Ferrell's man-child persona finds a warmly absurd Icelandic heart in this pop spoof
By Karen Gordon
Rating: B
Is Will Ferrell his own movie genre?
This is a key question as regards his latest movie Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. Bolstered by actors with serious chops, and a secondary cast of seriously talented singers — including some with Eurovision contest experience — the Netflix movie is sweetly affectionate.
But your enjoyment will likely be directly proportional to how you feel about Ferrell and his familiar man-boy character.
Lars and Sigrit (Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams) create strange pop music together as Fire Saga
Farrell co-wrote the film with former SNL writer Andrew Steele. And it’s directed by David Dobkin, whose credits include light silly comedies like Wedding Crashers.
Eurovision is a long running (established in 1956) annual televised music competition, an Olympics-like contest where 50 countries each put forward a musical act as their champion to win glory for their country.
The final competition plays to a massive TV audience, (according to Wikipedia, somewhere between 100 million and 600 million viewers). Big winners include Celine Dion (who competed, incredibly, for Switzerland in 1988) and ABBA who were able to parlay their win in 1974 to an international career.
(To view ABBA’s auspicious Eurovision debut, click HERE).
And the ABBA event is where the story starts:
Young Lars Erickksong (Ferrell), is growing up in the small fishing village of Húsavík, Iceland. His life changes when he sees the ABBA performance on Eurovision. His excitement is such that it also changes the life of his young friend Sigrit Ericksdottir (Rachel McAdams), a shy girl who has previously not spoken a word. But picking up on Lars’s exuberance she comes out of her shell.
Lars decides to dedicate himself to one day winning Eurovision. Lars’s dour fisherman father Erick (Pierce Brosnan) is not amused by his son’s obsession.
The adult Lars and Sigrit - he a parking control attendant and she a music teacher - have had a band together since they were kids, called, Fire Saga. The two of them play with a band at the local bar, where they get little respect especially for their original material (the crowd instead demanding the movie’s prime ear worm Jaja Ding Dong, which we’re to assume is a cover of a popular Icelandic song).
Along the way, the beautiful, talented Sigrit, has fallen in love with Lars, a sentiment not reciprocated by the single minded, self-obsessed klutz.
A series of events make Fire Saga Iceland’s official entry. Suddenly, they’re hanging with musicians from around the world, more worldly, more experienced and glamorous. And that includes the Russian competitor Alexander Lemtov (Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens).
Lemtov, a mysteriously wealthy, sexy, crazily confident singer is entranced with Sigrit. And Lemtov’s friend, the beautiful Greek singer Mita Xenakis (Melissanthi Mahut) has eyes for Lars, at least for a night or two.
On top of that, Iceland has hired a team to help to groom the duo. Artistic director Kevin Swan and image consultant Nina (real life brother and sister Jamie Demetriou, and What We Do in the Shadows’s Natasia Demetriou), reframe the song, the costumes and the staging by kicking it up several hundred notches on the kitsch and drama scale.
Ferrell plays this signature character with the comic intensity it demands. Meanwhile, the leads, McAdams, Stevens and Mahut all play their roles with more dimension and nuance, which gives the movie some necessary grounding and unexpected fun.
Stevens is one of the best and most versatile actors out there, and Eurovision Song Contest moves seamlessly from drama to comedy. But the heart and soul of the movie belongs to Toronto’s Rachel McAdams. She plays her character from the heart out. And even in the most absurd moments of physical comedy, she’s solid, never mugging.
Another key performer is never seen on camera. Swedish singer Molly Sandén, a vocalist with a massive range and beautiful clean tone, voices Sigrit’s singing. It’s a gorgeous charismatic addition that is a hugely important to making this all work.
The film also has fun playing with the crazy scale of Eurovision in all of its pop music madness. An extended scene that is particularly fun involves a singing game at a party at Lemtov’s mansion in which legitimately talented vocalists mash up pop songs.
The premise is fundamentally absurd, but there are a few moments of consciousness, most notably, references to Russian anti-LGBTQ policies. It’s done in context of this broad comedy, and somewhat cliche, but to the credit of the movie, it’s there.
Dobkin directs it all with a light touch. Tone is everything in a comedy, but when you add in the elements of music, there’s a lot to juggle and he keeps it all on track with nothing overbearing.
So, will you like this movie? Invariably it comes down to your feelings about Ferrell. I’ve been a fan since Saturday Night Live, so I was willing to get into the spirit here, although it may be time for him to give his man-child persona a rest.
Nonetheless, there’s an easy likability factor here, and a twisty conclusion that leads to something surprisingly sweet and affectionate. At a time of stress and acrimony, a moment of heartfelt sweetness is welcome.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. Directed by David Dobkin. Written by Will Ferrell and Andrew Steele. Starring Will Ferrell, Rachel McAdams and Dan Stevens. Now playing on Netflix.