I seem to recall the production team behind Will Ferrell’s last comedy, Holmes and Watson, tried to sell the movie to Netflix instead of showing it in cinemas, and now Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is being beamed straight into our homes. Does this mean Will Ferrell comedies will be exclusive to Netflix now? Netflix has become a premium destination for original movies now, unlike when Adam Sandler first jumped on board with them in 2015, so I’m all for this… cool.
Directed by David Dobkin and written by Will Ferrell and Andrew Steele, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga follows a hopeful Icelandic music duo, Fire Saga, as they get their big chance to perform at the Eurovision Song Contest – yep, the movie does what it says on the box. Ever since ABBA electrified television airways with Waterloo in 1974, Lars Erickssong (Will Ferrell) has made it his sole purpose to win Europe’s most prestigious song competition. Sigrit Ericksdottir (Rachel McAdams) is equally inspired, following along with Lars, and does whatever he thinks is best for the band. But Sigrit has the voice of an angel, and when encouraged to find her own independence, has to challenge Lars for creative control. This ‘probably-not’ brother and sister combination are also in love, but want to deny their lust until the Eurovision Song Contest dream is realised first.
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Was I the only one initially put off by the thought of two American actors making fun of Eurovision and appropriating Icelandic culture? With all the talk recently, condemning blackface, TV shows getting pulled for being problematic, and even cartoon TV shows scrambling to not have any fair-skin actors portraying other cultures, this movie also seemed like an idea that fit better ten years ago. Organising a bunch of real Eurovision contestants to appear in a Pitch Perfect style sing-off certainly helped show this movie as acceptable, and I loved the openness of the actors in the closing credits, divulging their respective nationalities with flags next to their names. Getting Scandinavian actors to play the Icelandic Eurovision committee also legitimises the movie for me; Ferrell includes a couple meta-scenes calling out Americans for ruining European culture as well. If there was a public outcry about this film, I didn’t hear about it. It seems you can be nationalist all day long (Black Panther is considered a triumph with a bunch of African-American and British actors putting on African accents) but you can’t show the slightest inkling that maybe you might be objectively observing something that could be racist – sometimes I find it funny where people draw their line of empathy. Anyway, I looked beyond this issue, and came around to watching Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga; I found it to be a very sweet movie the whole way through.
Just seeing Lars and Sigrit envision themselves on a rocky shore, in their silver get-up, belting out their electric-pop, is funny. Rachel McAdams is so effing charming and, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – how is she not in every movie ever? She does it all – comedy, drama, horror, romance; Hollywood, if you’re looking to make a movie, and you need to cast a female lead, you need Rachel McAdams. This is really Sigrit’s movie, where I’d say Will Ferrell’s character plays second-fiddle to her A-story. But Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, you won’t get me again, not like The Greatest Showman did – there’s no way Rachel McAdams is singing that final song; it’s mimed all the way, baby! (McAdams’ vocal is actually blended with Swedish singer Molly Sandén, I later discovered). But having an actor mime in a comedy isn’t as sacrilegious as having an actor mime in a musical though, so it’s not so much of a sin. Will Ferrell idles along, while Pierce Brosnan doesn’t have much to do but it’s still great hanging out with him again. And when the credits rolled, I was like, wait, the Russian Guy was Dan Stevens? That’s Dan Stevens, the same guy that was the epitome of awful in The Call of the Wild? Well, now I see why he keeps getting gigs because his character was amazing. I actually liked how the Russian and Greek contestants weren’t your typical bombastic villains, say like, the brother and sister team in Blades of Glory; they had some heart and graciously admitted defeat in a private scene at the end just for them.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is almost a quirky drama. There’s not so much laugh-out-loud silliness we’ve come to expect from Ferrell; except for maybe a moment or two with the ghost of Demi Lovato, and some Icelandic magical intervention. This movie is a happy journey, following these wide-eyed small-towners getting excited by the entire experience of realising their dream. When the pair fight, it’s literally disappointing because they’re so investing, and I was keen to see them succeed. I love the cause and effect of how they come to be competing in the Eurovision Song Contest in the first place – the Icelandic committee picks them out of a box of duds, to make up the numbers, and then the good contestants blow up. It seems like a small thing, to get the movie’s plot moving on convincing terms, but you’d be surprised how many movies get it wrong. The movie could have punched up its jokes here and there, and been a little funnier, but most importantly, it goes towards being a celebration of the Eurovision Song Contest and I hope it’s recognised as such by a Eurovision audience. All it was missing from an Australian point of view was Julia Zemiro – kick Graham Norton out and put her in, I say. (I know Miff Warhurst and Joel Creasey do Eurovision now, but Zemiro is still Eurovision for me). This movie will probably do as much for Iceland as Borat did for Kazakhstan, but at least the outlay will be positive.
3.5
Leave a Reply