Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022): Movie Review & Ending, Explained

The film begins inside a hospital, where Weird Al (Daniel Radcliffe) is going through a surgical procedure (performed by a surgeon played by Lin-Manuel Miranda). He gets resurrected within moments and takes us to the beginning of his life’s journey. In a suburban house, Young Al (Richard Aaron Anderson) listens to a radio show that plays the mad music and great comedy of Dr. Demento (Rainn Wilson). His mother – Mary (Julianne Nicholson) walks into the room, finds him listening to it under his blanket, and scolds him for it. Since his father won’t allow him to listen to such kinds of things, he should not be doing it. That is her justification.

When he storms out of the room, she notices a colorful shirt lying there, just like the one we are used to seeing the musician, wearing. In a conversation during their meal, his father – Nick (Toby Huss) tries to make him understand the importance of a disciplined factory. However, he rather wants to make songs. His father disapproves of his appeal and forces him to get a respectable job like his. Young Al does not want to rot in an industry where no worker even understands what they are making. Both Nick and Mary want him to ‘stop being who he is and doing the things he loves’. He feels betrayed since they do not ‘understand him’.

One day, a mysterious stranger (Thomas Lennon) knocks on their door and introduces Young Al to a musical instrument that he treasures for his entire life – an accordion. While he gets interested in playing it, Al’s father knocks the salesman down on the floor and punches him till he accepts his defeat. When Nick walks out, Mary buys the accordion for Al but warns him to not play in front of his father. In the coming years, he suppressed his music-making desires to be perceived as a normal kid – a well-behaved child with good grades. While he kept fantasizing about the accordion in solitude, he did not let anyone know the ‘real him’.

On one of the days during his school years, his two classmates inform him about a party at one of their friend’s houses. Teenage Al (David Bloom) refuses to come, saying that he does not have permission from his parents. The mates suggest he use a hay boy to make his parents assume that he is sleeping in his room. Al uses this decoy to enter the party and learns that it is a polka-themed party – a music form that he loved but was not allowed to play by his parents. In no time, he sees the love of his life – an accordion!

While he is adamant about not playing it, everyone starts making fun of him for not being ‘daring’ in this regard. He takes the accordion, and to everyone’s dismay, plays it like an expert. In the following noise by his teenage audience, the cops show up and escort him back to his home. His father learns about Al being at a polka party and playing the accordion. The argument comes to a point where he learns about an accordion, hidden in his closet and destroys it in front of his eyes. The ‘closet musician’ gets outed in this manner.

After suppressing his musical ambitions for a few more years, Al (Daniel Radcliffe) moves out of his hometown and lives in a place to live as pleased him. He started auditioning to get accepted into contemporary bands. But none of them wanted an accordion-playing singer, who did not go with their vibe. In his apartment, his flatmates learn about him wanting to parody already existing popular songs. They make him pursue his passion despite these rejections. But Al is looking for an inspiration to strike in.

That’s when the mates start playing My Sharona by The Knack, and coincidently he sees a pack of Bologna. He comes up with his first track – My Bologna. They record this music track together in a bathroom and mail the tape to Captain Buffoon – a famous radio personality at the time. While his friends try to give him a reality check about fame, they hear the song playing on the radio and start screaming in joy. Soon after, Al goes to the record producers – Tony Scotti (played by real-life ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic) and his brother Ben (Will Forte).

While he feels that he has already achieved fame with his mention on that radio show, the brothers tear him up by noting how silly it is to expect a music record of parodies when people can just listen to the originals. Nevertheless, Al does not lose faith in himself and keeps performing his parody tracks. In a club filled with rock fans, he comes up with – I Love Rocky Road – a parody of I Love Rock ‘N Roll. While he starts performing just with his accordion, his flatmates join him and start playing other instruments. The disgruntled fans start getting invested in their performance.

That is where Al’s childhood obsession – Dr. Demento discovers him and offers him a pathway to success. He offers to be Al’s mentor and rechristens him – from Al Yankovic to Weird – Al Yankovic. He introduces Al to many people from the music industry and the pop world. From Andy Warhol (Conan O’Brien) to Salvador Dali (Emo Philips), from Alice Cooper (Akiva Schaffer) to Gallagher (Paul F. Tompkins), the who’s who of the art world gets introduced to his talent. That’s where Wolfman Jack (Jack Black) dares him to play a new parody song on the spot.

Right afterward, John Deacon (David Dastmalchian), the bassist for The Queen, dares him to sing a parody of Another One Bites the Dust. While Al is initially afraid to perform, he comes up with ‘Another One Rides the Bus’! Getting enamored by it, John invites him to perform at the grand event of Live Aid. Al rejects the offer to his face, and everyone starts laughing. That just started his illustrious career when his debut album becomes quintuple platinum in no time. He starts getting fans from all over the world from Oprah Winfrey (Quinta Brunson) to Pablo Escobar (Arturo Castro).

After reaching this height of success, Al calls his mother, who feels proud of his accomplishment. However, his father still does not accept Al’s choice of career. When he speaks about this parental trauma with Dr. Demento, he gives him snacks filled with LSD to eat. In his resulting fever dream, he sees every naysayer as a demon whereas Dr. Demento is an angel. In this turmoil, he births a song named ‘Eat it’. When the Scotti brothers hear it playing, they cannot trace the tune with any popular track. That’s when Al notes being done with parody songs and wanting to write originals moving forward in his career.

Soon after, Madonna shows up at his front door and in no time, they get in bed and share intimacy like horny teenagers. His career takes a U-turn since he goes on an ego trip and gets increasingly invested in a romantic relationship with Madonna. He starts refusing great deals and gets furious when Michael Jackson parodies his music track to create ‘Beat It’! He starts throwing tantrums, from being late for soundcheck to insulting his band members (his ex-flat mates). Seeing his self-destructive behavior, Dr. Demento warns him to stay away from Madonna.

He sees her evil intention, which is to use Al’s growing popularity for her success and make him create a parody of one of her tracks. Al storms out, screaming that Demento’s not his father – since he is making him do something against his will at the moment. Despite knowing that he is drunk, Madonna gives him his car keys, after which he has a terrible accident. The earlier moment of resurrection appears when Al wakes up and writes a song that becomes another one of his hits – Like a Surgeon based on Madonna’s Like a Virgin. She keeps enabling his drunkenness, which descends him down the line and makes him a figure to loathe, even among his fans.

After a period of such scandalous acts, Al realizes that he needs to be better than this. While having a discussion about his past traumas in a diner with Madonna, she gets taken away by a few gunned abductors. He goes all the way to Colombia to meet his fan – Pablo Escobar, who had captured Madonna, only so that he can listen to Al perform for him live. When Al refuses to do so, Pablo shoots him in the chest. However, he gets saved by his platinum records – tied to the same chest. He throws one of them back at the drug lord and kills him to save the groaning Madonna.

Seeing Pablo dead, she makes up a plan for them to be drug lords themselves. She invites him to be his number 2 in this drug empire. He refuses this offer and finally realizes evil intent. He understands that she was doing it all this time just for fame and money, just like what Dr. Demento mentioned to him. When she tries to shoot him dead, he leaves this foreign country to go back to his hometown to work in an industry, just as his father wanted him to. Even now, the workers are oblivious to what they make there.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022) Ending. Explained:

Al comes across his father, and they have a heartfelt conversation. Nick mentions that this boring life is not for him and that he should go back to the music industry. He also notes being a Weird Al fan himself. Back at home, during their meal, the family has another conversation where Nick opens up about his past, where he also was interested in music and playing the accordion. The reason for him for being hard on Al was for his son not to go through the same turmoil that he went through to keep his passion for music intact.

In the notes shared by Nick, Al comes up with his new track – Amish Paradise – which Coolio was not happy with being a parody of Gangsta’s Paradise. He apologizes to his band members and to Dr. Demento for his reckless behavior before. Soon afterward, in an award show, he receives an award from Dianna Ross (Trenyce) and Hulk Hogan (James Preston Rogers) (in a needlessly niche category!) over Prince. Soon after he makes his speech, he gets assassinated by a person with a machine gun (sitting in plain sight) – as per an order by Madonna.

After a series of snippets from Weird Al’s life, showcasing him with different musical and otherwise popular personalities, we see Madonna coming to Weird Al’s grave as a way to say a final goodbye to him. When she keeps a flower down on his grave, his hand comes out of the grave, grabs her, and scares her to death!

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022) Movie Review:

A relentless silly, goofy fun just like Weird Al’s music career

While working on scripts based on real-life personalities, Aaron Sorkin has often invented scenes and incidents that did not occur in the characters’ lives. The famous rapid conversation at the beginning of The Social Network is one such example. Even if this method can be controversial, what matters is bringing the essence of who these people are. Maybe Weird Al and Eric Clapton took his device to heart and presented the artist’s life with a satire that speaks about him without necessarily speaking about him. For someone whose life had hardly any scandals, the film invents many. As the screenwriting lecturer in Adaptation says, you can’t have a Hollywood script without a conflict. So the makers invent them to create a quintessential extravaganza.

Around the time of the film’s release, Weird Al himself confessed that ‘Weird: The Al Yankovic Story’ is not being entirely factual. For someone who was only vaguely familiar with Weird Al’s life trajectory and his work, the film shares so much about the person without sharing much. What essentially is a biographical parody of his life events, the film can be easily considered as a stretched version of a video titled ‘A spoof of every Hollywood music biopic ever made’.

That is the essence of this satirical film, which is interested to take a dig at the formulaic rise-and-fall narratives churned out by the studio system. However, just like the artist’s work, the film is not brutal with contempt but silly, goofy fun. While poking fun at how a biopic is conventionally expected to be, we get to witness most of the genre tropes. We get a kid whose dreams were rejected and who went against the system to live his dreams. We get a juicy (and entirely fabricated) affair from the artist’s life, and we get a complicated family drama.

We also get a ‘look at how he made fun of all the biggies’ moment during the pool party and the final ‘achievement of glory’ moment. Whatever occurs throughout its duration is an unabashed parody of all these cliches, while revealing their purpose in such narratives. What makes the film endearing is how it never wants itself to be taken too seriously – to be considered as an intellectual debate. For an artist who made a career out of parodying songs of contemporary musicians and making light of pop culture, it is a more than worthy tribute to his much-adored legacy.

Amidst its myriad of amusing cameos, what certainly stands out is the central performance by Daniel Radcliffe. His commitment to the character of the iconic artist makes you root for his betterment while knowing all well that you are watching a satire. Evan Rachel Wood is reliable as ever and presents a (fictional) conniving figure of Madonna with a sharp edge. With his iconic music tracks, the quotient of entertainment increases tenfold. What makes you leave ‘Weird: The Al Yankovic Story’ with a wide smile is the same outrageous charm that the artist is loved for.

Read More: Where to Watch and Stream ‘Weird: The Al Yankovic Story’ Online?