BEFORE: I'm quickly running out of September movies here, with just four films left until I hit the planned start of the October horror movies chain. Did September go by super-fast for everyone else, or was it just me? After today I'll have 3 films and 6 days left in the month, so if I don't alternate then there's got to be a few days of down-time. But this will be nothing compared to the down-time planned for November and December, because I really overloaded the first half of 2020, so I have just 12 movies scheduled for the last two months of the year. What the hell am I going to do with all that free time? Like everybody else, I'm waiting for news of some kind of vaccine, which could greatly affect my lifestyle then - I'm trying to find a part-time job that won't put me at risk or completely crush my spirit, and that's not easy. Maybe by November it will be a different situation, and I can somehow fill my days with something other than movies and TV.
There's no New York Comic-Con, theaters and shows and concerts are still a no-go, and even road trips are still somewhat problematic. Halloween's not really my thing, nor is the Thanksgiving Day Parade, which is also going virtual, and who even knows what Christmas is going to look like when people still can't gather safely in groups. The whole year's pretty much a wash-out, and that included the 2020 Olympics (which are now the 2021 Olympics) and the 2020 Eurovision Song Contest. This film was originally going to be released theatrically in May when the event usually takes place, but since the real-life event was cancelled, the film got released on Netflix in June. Took me three months to work it in somewhere, for me that's not too bad.
Dan Stevens carries over from "Lucy in the Sky".
THE PLOT: When aspiring musicians Lars and Sigrit are given the opportunity to represent their country at the world's biggest song competition, they finally have a chance to prove that any dream worth having is a dream worth fighting for.
AFTER: As someone who's been watching thousands of movies over the last 12 years, and tracking the careers of countless actors, many of whom are somewhat under the radar, it brings me a strange sense of joy to finally find a movie that features both semi-prominent Icelandic big, bearded character actors - of course, I'm talking about Olafur Darri Olafsson and Johannes Haukur Johannesson, but you knew that, right? I'm guessing these two have been up for many of the same roles over the years, and I'm not sure if they're terrible rivals or there's just a bit of friendly competition between them. FINALLY they're in the same movie, along with, I'm guessing, nearly every other noteworthy actor of Icelandic descent.
Look, all I really know about Iceland, apart from hot springs and fjords, is that there's a thriving music scene there, which produced many acts, such as The Sugarcubes, and also Björk (who started out in The Sugarcubes) and...well, that's it. Here I have to go to the web to find out about Sigur Ros, Thor's Hammer, Of Monsters and Men, and Pursaflokkurinn, which I think is Icelandic for "We're Not a Band". But the Icelanders are a scrappy bunch, to be sure. I guess you kind of have to be, to live in Iceland and be descended from Vikings.
Lars Erickssong is a scrappy Icelander, in his own way. His dream is to win the famous annual Eurovision Song Contest, by singing with his friend, potential love-interest, and possibly (but hopefully not) sister, Sigrit Ericksdottir. The naming conventions in Iceland are complicated, I know - the pair's last names suggest that they're both possibly descended from somebody named Erick, but perhaps it was so long ago that they're not sure if it's the SAME Erick, or two different ones. Lars' father is also named Erick, so maybe that's a big red flag here.
But Lars also still lives at home with his father, despite being a middle-aged man. This is where "Eurovision Song Contest" starts to resemble nearly every other star vehicle for Will Ferrell, because all of his characters seem to be these stunted man-children who are quirky in different ways, but are otherwise retarded (this is the correct usage of the word here, I promise) in their personal achievements. Yet they're all aiming really high, the only thing that seems to change is the sport or contest they want to win, whether it's NASCAR ("Talladega Nights"), basketball ("Semi-Pro"), ice skating ("Blades of Glory") or the coveted news desk position in San Diego ("Anchorman"). A case can be made for Ferrell spending the majority of his acting career just following a formula, essentially re-making the same film over and over. (Though I'll admit there are notable exceptions, like "Megamind", "Stranger than Fiction", "Winter Passing" and "Everything Must Go".)
I think I'd almost prefer to watch a documentary about the Eurovision Song Contest, though, because on some level it seems like the event is probably crazier than any fictional film made about it could be, but then I guess that documentary would end up looking a lot like the contest itself. So instead they sort of followed the "Pitch Perfect" formula, which in turn is based on every underdog sports film, going back at least to "Rocky". Because why re-invent the wheel at this point, if you don't have to? There's even a take on the "riff-off" battles seen in the "Pitch Perfect" franchise, only here they call it a "song-along" and it's not competive, it's cooperative. But still, it's completely impossible for that many singers to sing that many lines from different songs, to create an improvised arrangement that is flawless. Most singers are not also song arrangers, and there's no group mind that kicks in at a party to create a song montage. Giant NITPICK POINT, though it is a great song arrangement here.
The film was a bit confusing for me at first, because before competing in Eurovision, Fire Saga first had to win the Söngvakeppnin, which is the Icelandic pre-selection competition. Each country only gets to send one act to Eurovision, so I guess each country has some kind of smaller contest to figure out which act gets to go to the big, EU-wide singing contest. It's a little like making somebody win "Pennsylvanian Idol" or "Indiana's Got Talent" in order to qualify for the big nation-wide reality competitions. But Eurovision's been around even longer than the EU - the band ABBA famously won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with "Waterloo" near the start of their career. (This is shown at the beginning of the film, inspiring both Lars and Sigrit, but this was also a bit confusing, it led me to think that Fire Saga was a Swedish band, not an Icelandic one. I guess ABBA transcends most major national borders.)
Fire Saga was not the greatest band in Iceland, but the joke is that they needed 12 acts for the Söngvakeppnin, and they only had 11, so they needed a ringer to round out the competition, and comply with the rules. Then a different logic takes over and drives the plot forward, which is an interesting one - since the cities that host large events like the Olympics often lose money in the process, and since the country that wins the Eurovision Song Contest has to host the next one, it seems there's a motivation to NOT send the best act to the finals. A certain element on the Iceland government committee would prefer to not have their country invaded by thousands of crazy music fans and watch the country go bankrupt as a result of some silly band's success in a music competition.
So if the goal of a country is to send a band to Edinburgh (Moscow? Stockholm? Honestly, I wasn't sure) to compete and lose, perhaps that explains a lot. In that case, Fire Saga is just the band for the job. Lars and Sigrit have no clue, of course, they think that maybe the little elves of Iceland are working their magic to insure that Fire Saga succeeds on stage. Umm, yeah, Sigrit believes in elves, and apparently so do half the citizens of Iceland. That seems sort of quaint and innocent, when compared with the fact that half of Americans don't believe in the coronavirus.
We can also predict with some certainty that these two crazy naive non-kids are also destined to be together, but they've got to work out their differences and acknowledge their attractions to each other, and also survive the fires of temptation when they each meet other potential partners competing at the Eurovision finals. Again, it's clearly a formula here, but at least it's a safe, proven one. We know that Lars and Sigrit will probably end up together, we know that Lars will find a way to win the respect of his disapproving father, and even if they don't win Eurovision, we know these two will probably at least find themselves in the process.
It turns out a lot of work went into this, because Will Ferrell was on hand for the real 2018 Eurovision Song Contest, which was in Lisbon, and hung out with the Swedish delegation for the whole process. Will Ferrell's wife is from Sweden, so that maybe explains how he got interested in the first place. plus that sort of fits with the whole "band inspired by ABBA" idea, so I wonder why they switched the band's country of origin to Iceland. Maybe they got a tax incentive from Iceland, or a grant from the Icelandic Tourism Board or something. Maybe Sweden's appeared in too many movies already, and Iceland represents fresh comedic territory? Similarly, the real-life 2020 contest was scheduled to be held in Rotterdam, and the film moved the location to Edinburgh, but this is perhaps a minor point since the film doesn't specifically mention the year. They did take some footage of the crowd at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv, but they shot the performances for the film on a soundstage in London.
Despite the comic plot point of the host cities ending up in financial trouble, the Eurovision Contest rules only require that a host city have an arena that can hold 10,000 people, plus have hotel accommodations for another 2,000 journalists, delegates and spectators, although the 2001 competition in Copenhagen had 38,000 attendees. Another interesting point about the Eurovision voting is that entries from five countries don't even have to compete in the semi-finals, they go straight to the Finals! (The host country's entrant also gets a bye, so sometimes it's SIX countries that are guaranteed spots in the finals!) This is apparently because those five countries (including Spain and the U.K.) are the biggest financial contributors, but this seems a bit unfair, and this would never stand in an American competition - though I guess it's a bit like the "Golden Buzzer" winners on America's Got Talent, who go straight to the semi-finals and don't have to worry about the quarter-final shows. Yep, it's another NITPICK POINT because the Top ten depicted here probably should have had those five countries already confirmed at the start of the announcement.
The real ESC also uses only pre-recorded backing tracks, the contestants do sing live, but none of the acts are allowed to play instruments live. Sorry to burst your bubble, if you're a big Eurovision fan. Also, some singing in an entrant's native tongue is allowed, not forbidden. But English is apparently encouraged for the widest possible appeal, I guess. Or perhaps it's because most people who speak other languages also know English, but most English-speaking people don't know other languages? That would be my bet, anyway. One thing the movie does get right, however, is that the competition is for best SONG, not best act performing a song. I think maybe sometimes the voters may choose an act because they like them more, however they're supposed to be judging the quality of the song. One time a participant (from Iceland) had a stroke and died right before the contest, and six of his friends came together to sing his song at the event - so the acts are replaceable, but the songs are not.
The voting and delegates process - I didn't understand that at all. It seems to be based on the U.S. Electoral College, or perhaps the process where states vote during the Democratic and Republican primaries. Which, of course, means that upsets are unlikely, but possible. So are ties, but really, the two things you don't want in any kind of an election are upsets and ties. Let's remember that, everybody!
Also starring Will Ferrell (last seen in "Between Two Ferns: The Movie"), Rachel McAdams (last seen in "State of Play"), Pierce Brosnan (last seen in "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again"), Mikael Persbrandt (last seen in "The Girl in the Spider's Web"), Olafur Darri Olafsson (last seen in "Murder Mystery"), Melissanthi Mahut, Joi Johansson (last seen in "Flags of Our Fathers"), Bjorn Hlynur Haraldsson, Demi Lovato (last seen in "Zoolander 2"), Graham Norton, Jamie Demetriou (last seen in "Paddington 2"), Elina Alminas (last seen in "Ex Machina"), Jon Kortajarena (last seen in "A Single Man"), Alfrun Rose (last seen in "The Favourite"), Elin Petersdottir, Christopher Jeffers, Rebecca Harrod, Josh Zaré, Bobby Lockwood (last seen in "Dunkirk"), Elena Saurel, Eleanor Williams, Johannes Haukur Johannesson (last seen in "Where'd You Go, Bernadette"), Natasia Demetriou, Hanne Oli Agustsson, Bjorn Stefansson, Tomas Lemarquis (last seen in "Blade Runner 2049"), Zack Propert, William Lee Adams, Chris Beaumont, Alfie Melia, Sophia-Grace Donnelly, with cameos from real Eurovision contestants John Lundvik, Anna Odobescu, Bilal Hassani, Loreen, Jessy Matador, Alexander Rybak, Jamala, Elina Nechayeva, Conchita Wurst, Netta, Salvador Sobral, Molly Sanden, Petra Nielsen, and archive footage of ABBA.
RATING: 5 out of 10 Russian lion dancers
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