Other Media Review

Movie Review: Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

How do I even begin to review Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga? There were parts of it that made me squee with delight, and parts that made me laugh because they were so true, and also parts that made me just cringe in horror and want to hide under the couch or throw things at the TV…and these parts followed each other in such quick succession that it’s honestly hard for me to say whether this movie is good or bad, or whether I liked it or not.

When I heard that Will Ferrell was doing a Eurovision film for Netflix, my feelings were mixed. I don’t really know Ferrell’s work, but I was very doubtful an American comedian could get Eurovision right. (I do recognise the irony of an Australian writing this, but we do have quite a long history of screening Eurovision here, a privilege you in the US haven’t had until quite recently.)

I’m glad to say that my doubts were absolutely, definitively unjustified. It turns out that Ferrell’s brand of comedy drives me right up the wall, but the Eurovision bits? Absolutely on point. The songs sounded exactly like Eurovision songs – I understand that several of them were composed by people who had written songs for Eurovision, in fact – and the staging of the songs was hilarious and gave nods to just about every iconically weird Eurovision performance from the last decade. I don’t think it was entirely fair on Eurovision audiences (we are far more generous than the film suggests!), but the film didn’t miss a single in-joke, the politics were spot-on, and the cameos from everyone from Conchita Wurst to Graham Norton were marvellous. I may not be able to stand Ferrell as a comedian, but the man clearly knows and loves his Eurovision, and I have to respect that.

For those of you who don’t know what this film is about, the premise is as follows. As a young boy in 1974, Lars Erickssong (Will Ferrell) sees ABBA’s winning Eurovision performance, and a dream is born – he will represent Iceland at Eurovision one day. Forty-something years later, he is still working on that dream, living at home with his disapproving father (played by Piers Brosnan, because evidently the man is contractually obliged to appear in any film with ABBA in it) and writing and performing songs with the only other person who believes in his dreams, Sigrit Ericksdottir (Rachel McAdams), the girl next door. In the evenings, the duo and their band play at the local pub, but when they try to play their Eurovision compositions, all the crowd wants to hear is ‘Ja Ja – Ding Dong’, an allegedly ‘traditional’ song, with extremely dodgy lyrics that Lars and Sigrit sing with a complete lack of awareness.

My love for you is growing wide and long...

Widely acknowledged as terrible, the duo is clearly never going to get anywhere near Eurovision… and yet, in a series of unlikely events involving a demo tape selected at random, a fiery explosion, and the possible intervention of elves (or perhaps Finance Ministers), Sigrit and Lars become Iceland’s Eurovision entry, and the rest of the film documents their journey through the competition.

There is a lot to like about this movie. The songs and staging both at the Iceland internal competition and at Eurovision themselves are hilariously perfect, with nods to many of the most memorable performances of the last decade or two. Our virtual living room (we held a remote viewing party on Discord) was particularly taken with Moon Fang, a Lordi parody, which further delighted me by being from Belarus, just exactly the sort of country one can rely on to produce something this deliciously bonkers.

I was an outsider, a troubled child, until I picked up the call of the wild...

For my money, Alexander Lemtov (Dan Stevens) has the best song of the lot, with Lion of Love. His song is also supposedly the favourite going into the Eurovision Finals, which makes perfect sense to me. It has everything a Eurovision act ought to have: topless backing dancers in gold lamé pants dancing suggestively, operatic moments (Stevens has a very impressive voice), falsetto, vaguely Eastern European modalities, over the top sex eyes into the close-up camera, dubious lyrics, pyrotechnics, a Eurovision keychange, and even a costume reveal (which nonetheless preserves the glorious brocade jacket that is Alex’s trademark). If I saw that on a Eurovision stage, I’d vote for it in a heartbeat.

Thousands try to tame me, but I roam free...

Speaking of Alex, he was one of my favourite things about the film. When he first appeared, I thought he was being set up as the villain, which annoyed me, mostly because I was already cross enough with Lars that I wasn’t convinced that even an obvious villain would be a worse choice for Sigrit. I’m glad to say they took Alex in a very different and rather poignant direction to what I had anticipated, and it was clever and appropriate on a number of levels. Stevens did a lovely job with the role, too – you could see he was thoroughly enjoying the camp and having the time of his life with that song performance, but he made the serious moments work, too. For me, he completely stole the show, and if they ever write a sequel starring him as the central character – ideally with his friend and wingwoman Mita as a sidekick – I will be THERE FOR IT with bells (or gold lamé) on.

As for Mita Xenakis (Melissanthi Mahut), who really should have been representing Cyprus rather than Greece as I’m fairly sure she was strongly influenced by Eleni Foureira, I had more mixed feelings. She made a witty, not-quite-mean-girl foil to Sigrit’s over the top innocence, and I was glad to see that despite her aggressively sexual personality, the film didn’t turn her into a villain. However…I did have an issue with her attempted seduction of Lars (setting aside the fact that there is clearly NO accounting for taste). It was played as comedy, but if the genders had been reversed and a male character had been pushing a female character like that, I’d have been thoroughly squicked out, and I was frankly pretty uncomfortable even as things were. Sexual coercion isn’t funny no matter who is doing the coercing, and I really wish a different choice had been made in that scene.

(The parallel scene with Alexander and Sigrit, however, was absolutely brilliant and adorable and hilarious, and I won’t spoil it for you by saying a single word more.)

To cheer you up after that, here is Mita’s Eurovision performance. It has an astronaut costume, and dancing that is even more suggestive than Alexander’s.

We’re stuck in this world of madness...

There were a lot of fairly adorable Eurovision in-jokes, from the subplot about the Finance Minister who doesn’t want Iceland to win because it will bankrupt the country, to the inevitable bloc voting, which made us laugh. There were also some highly entertaining supernatural elements. The ghost subplot made me laugh out loud, and the elves turned out to be a little less cutesy and a little more traditionally Icelandic than we had expected, to our delight. The Songalong sequence, which featured cameos from numerous former Eurovision stars was also an utter joy.

Do you believe in life after Waterloo?

Unfortunately, there was the main plot to contend with, and most of it drove me right up the wall. Lars was, in my view, a spoilt man-child, prone to arrogance, petulance and self-absorption. I couldn’t stand him, and I honestly could not understand why Sigrit (who is by far the superior musician of the two) put up with him. There was this whole sequence when they were preparing for the big concert where he kept changing things without telling her – costumes, pyrotechnics, choreography, music arrangement, gimmicks – sometimes in ways that risked physically injuring her. Apart from anything else, this showed an utter disrespect for Sigrit as a musician and a creative partner. Honestly, I spent this whole sequence squirming in sympathetic horror, cringing in anticipation of disaster, or fuming at Lars’ disrespectful and dangerous behaviour. I’m a singer, and it’s not uncommon for me to have anxiety dreams about things going wrong in performance. Well, this was all my worst nightmares of performance dialled up to eleven and given a Eurovision twist.

Worse still, this is a romantic comedy, so of course Sigrit is in love with Lars, who is largely oblivious. This was immensely depressing, frankly. Even as his friend and duet partner, Sigrit spends way too much time managing and compensating for Lars’ emotions and behaviour and smoothing things down for him when he annoys the people around them. I wanted Sigrit to dump Lars and have a solo career. Or to run off to Greece with Alexander and Mita and have marvellous and musical adventures.

(To be fair, on the level of acting and directing, I can’t fault Ferrell’s performance. Acting ought to invoke emotion, and his character certainly did evoke emotion in me. It’s just that the emotion in question was mostly fury…)

There was also one decision that was completely incomprehensible to me, and that was the song Lars and Sigrid sent to the contest, Double Trouble. It’s a sweet enough pop duet, but all the advertising had been based around the far more entertaining Volcano Man, which appeared in the film only in the opening sequence. This really seemed like a waste of a good Eurovision song. (But then again, would it really feel like Eurovision if I didn’t find myself utterly mystified by the songs that seem to be preferred by actual Europeans?)

Anyway, because I like you, here is Volcano Man, so that you can see for yourself.

Woke up at night, I heard floating chords – they guided me to the highland fjords

So where does that leave me in grading this film? I mean, essentially I liked all the trappings of it, but was infuriated by the central plot, which makes it really difficult to figure out. Without Lars, it’s a Squee. With only Lars, it’s a Rant. These are not easy things to accommodate, because while there were parts I enjoyed, the Lars plot set my teeth on edge, both as a performer and romance reader. I was tempted, in the spirit of Eurovision, to ask each member of my virtual living room to give the film a score from nul to douze points, but scoring a film by committee is probably not how a review should work.

I am therefore going to give each element of this film a score, and then add them all up, in dramatic fashion. In the words of Jon Ola Sand:

Take it away

 

  • Music: 11 points. I wanted more.
  • Lars: Ugh. 2 points. I hated him. And he was Always There.
  • Sigrit: 10 points. Great voice, delightful character, but minus two for her deplorable taste in men.
  • Alexander: 13 points. Which is what happens when you give someone 12 points and then they go over the top. The singing, the song, the staging, the politics, the pathos. He had everything. Except a sequel. Can we give him a sequel? Pretty please?
  • Mita: 7 points. I really did like her song and her character was a lot of fun, but minus 5 points for coercive behaviour. (She would have lost more points if it weren’t for <redacted>). It’s such a shame, because she was enormous fun in other respects, and I loved her relationship with Alex.
  • Supernatural elements: 12 points. Look, if you think I’m going to risk offending Icelandic elves, think again. They can have all the points they want from me. And the ghost was fabulous.
  • Eurovisuality: 12 points. They really got this right, and it was so satisfying.
  • Icelandic content: I am not qualified to judge, so I’ll just link to this magnificent article, by someone who is.

That gives us 67 out of a possible 84 points, with the score slightly inflated by my fear of healthy respect for Icelandic elves. That seems a bit high to me, given just how much of the film I spent hiding from the screen because of Lars’ behaviour. Still, if nothing else, it does serve to show that there was a lot in this film I did like, despite Lars.

Given that the film does centre around Lars, however, I think a fairer scoring system would triple his weighting compared to other elements. (This is also in keeping with the opaque and sometimes incomprehensible scoring rules of the Eurovision jury and popular votes, so I feel like I’m on safe ground in doing this.) Doing so gives me a score for this film of 71 out of a possible 108, or 66% which is much closer to how I feel about the film. In letter terms, that’s about a C plus.

Despite all my complaints, I will probably watch Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga again. Hell, I’ve already watched several of the video clips multiple times. But when I do watch it a second time, it will be with the remote control in hand, and my thumb hovering over the fast forward button, ready to press it every time Lars shows signs of being a jerk. I expect that, watched in such a fashion, it will be a rather short movie. But it will also be a very satisfying one.

Add Your Comment →

  1. Luce says:

    Completely agree with all of this! Lars was such a man-child, pouting and stomping his feet when things didn’t go as he wanted them to go. It would have been more satisfying and relevant had Sigrit realized her own worth, dumped him and discovered the world on her own.
    I’m European and the setting and in-jokes really landed well with me although it might seem incomprehensible to non-European/-Australian audiences.
    I laughed way too loud about Ja Ja Ding Dong though.
    A sequel about Alexander and Mita’s Greek adventures? That is definitely what the world would need. Especially because it wouldn’t involve Lars. Sigrit is a welcome cameo although her decision to stick with Lars made me reduce my points for her.

  2. Ozlsn says:

    I enjoyed so much of this film but agree that Lars was awful for most of the film (he improved from about when the elves took a more direct role in the movie, mostly because he moved into the background and shut up). I would definitely buy the soundtrack, and kind of want to see the full Eurovision performances now though – and to visit Húsavík (And the whale museum).

  3. Jill Q. says:

    Ah, I’m so torn on if I want to watch the movies or not. This review kind of confirmed my suspicion of what it would be (both good and bad). I may watch it with a ready hand on the fast forward.
    Also, Will Ferrell’s wife is Swedish (they’ve been together for a long time), so maybe that’s why he got the Eurovision feel down? I mean, what is more iconic than ABBA.

  4. MGW says:

    I really enjoyed it! I also wasn’t a huge fan of the romance but I thought the way they showed Lars finally getting the damn point worked for me, but I’m easy.
    Also just as a note, while Dan Stevens can sing, they actually had someone else do the singing for him in this movie! They were going to blend his voice like they did for Rachel McAdams, but due to the pandemic he wasn’t able to make it to the studio (I think) so all the singing is Swedish singer Eric Mjones.

  5. June says:

    @Jill Q, I read somewhere that Will Ferrell’s first time watching Eurovision was 1999, when Charlotte Perrelli (then Nilsson) won for Sweden. Iceland, by the way, finished second.

    Now – “It has everything a Eurovision act ought to have: topless backing dancers in gold lamé pants dancing suggestively, operatic moments (Stevens has a very impressive voice), falsetto, vaguely Eastern European modalities, over the top sex eyes into the close-up camera, dubious lyrics, pyrotechnics, a Eurovision keychange, and even a costume reveal.”

    You know, this sounds like the glorious Love Love Peace Peace rather than anything that has won Eurovision in recent memory.

    I haven’t seen the movie but I feel like everyone should enjoy Iceland’s 2019 entry, and if it’s blocked in your country do Google Hatrið mun sigra.

  6. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    We started watching this because…well, frankly, because it showed up on our Netflix queue. I was familiar with Eurovision, but no one else was, so I put the link to Catherine Heloise’s amazing overview on our family group chat. I must admit, it grew on us as we watched it—although along with everyone else, we found Will Farrell’s character to be awful. I’m not sure if we were supposed to sympathize with him or not, but most of the time I was in Pierce Brosnan’s corner: Grow the fuck up!

    Another thing that bugged me was the way Sigrit’s was “aged down,” but Lars wasn’t. If they are both old enough to have watched ABBA at the 1974 Eurovision, then they’d both be about 50…which seems right for Lars, but Sigrit as still asking the elves to let her have a baby with Lars. (Also, what the hell did she see in Lars?)

    On the other hand, I loved Alexander and Sigrit together—even though it’s kinda-sorta obvious that they might not be sexually compatible, they seemed like great friends. I’ve read enough romances to think, we’ll, perhaps they could make it work—lol.

  7. Carol S says:

    Will Ferrell is married to a Swedish woman, so I suspect he had lots of insight from Europeans on all the Eurovision stuff. He is one of those actors who always makes me laugh and I tend not to take the plot stuff seriously even when it is problematic — to me, this is also a parody of romance movies, with the over-the-top alpha boyfriend and the super-innocent girfriend, the misunderstanding (each thinking the other slept w/ someone else), etc. I confess to not knowing enough about Eurovision to get all of the jokes, but I enjoyed the movie anyway.

  8. Arijo says:

    Isn’t it Will Ferrel schtik, to play ridiculously caricatural characters? Think Anchorman, or Blades of Glory. I don’t think you’re supposed to like him, I think you’re supposed to laugh at him.

    I am definitely going to watch that movie. Eurovision doesn’t blip on anyone’s radar where I live, so my first real introduction to it was the squee done here a few weeks back. It wet my appetite for more 😀 As I’m forewarned about the Lars thing, I’ll try to focus on the Eurovision parts. Thanks for the review!

  9. Escapeologist says:

    I tried watching this when it showed up in the Netflix suggestions, but there was too much plot, not enough music. Guess my brain just wanted straight up Eurovision.

    This review confirms my suspicions, thank you Catherine Heloise! The clips made me smile on a not-so-good
    morning, thank you doubly for that. Lion of Looooove!!!!!

    I will treat this movie like Pitch Perfect 2 – fast forward between songs. (Pitch Perfect the Original is my one true love.)

  10. Escapeologist says:

    Popping back in to say – Will Ferrell being ridiculous is expected, but Rachel McAdams is too talented and adorable to be stuck with him. I’d watch that sequel though.

  11. quizzabella says:

    I’m British and it’s an annual thing to get together, get drunk and watch Eurovision because so many performances are bonkers. I really enjoyed the film – Ferrell’s character was kind of awful, but believable as were the ridiculous songs.

  12. CLAUDIA (the other one) says:

    I also became intrigued by this because of the recent Squee post! I’ll watch this for everything but Ferrel (even though I know I’ll hate the Ferrell parts, my roommate will find him funny). I’m especially here for the Icelandic elves.

  13. Susan says:

    Just watched this earlier this week and was pleasantly surprised. Will Ferrell movies are hit or miss for me and know nothing about Eurovision, but took a chance. I read the article from the link and it was very interesting…thanks for including that! The Anchorman movies likely are his best known and most successful, but my favorite is still Land of the Lost.

  14. Anna says:

    Aside from the complete male fantasy romance portion of this movie (amazing, talented, stunning woman being blindly in love with an average, unsympathetic, self-centered schlump of a man)… I loved this movie. The music has been on repeat for me, I thought the elf-related plot elements were hilarious, Rachel McAdams was perfect (and even though it kind of infuriates me, she made it believable in her performance that her character was genuinely, sweetly in love with “her dreamer,” and that’s even more of a credit to her since it’s such a negative on the development and writing of the film).
    In all honesty though, I’m used to much “worse” from Will Ferrell and he’s not always my cup of tea in his R-rated films, so to me this film was toned down enough that I actually really liked his comedic performance (aside, again, from the aforementioned male-fantasy romance portion.)

  15. Lisa F says:

    I had such a good time with this movie, but then again I adored Blades of Glory, which is Will Ferrell’s magnum opus. I really adored this and if you liked that flick, you’ll probably like it too.

  16. Cleo says:

    Will Ferrell is so fascinating to me. I’ve never been able to watch more than a couple minutes of any of his movies – I just hate man-babies. And his humor isn’t to my taste at all.

    But I remember when he started writing his own movies in the early 2000s – they were not to my taste but they seemed much more progressive / less sexist and homophobic than the man-baby movies of the 90s starring Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey, etc.

    I doubt I’ll watch this but I loved reading the review.

  17. Gillian B says:

    Oh if only one had been in the audience for last year’s Eurovision and got to see all those extra acts!

  18. Alison Ustun says:

    I agree with you, but I fell under its spell. It could have and should have been so much better – but I still love it. Really love it. In this horrible time, it’s like a great big hug. It made me so happy. I think there should be an online petition for an Alexander and Mita sequel.
    I was a bit obsessed with Dan Stevens after Beauty and the Beast – that scene with him at the start getting ready for the ball – that eye shadow, those eyes – but his turn as Lemtov has taken my obsession to another level!

  19. I’m loving all these comments, and by the clear thirst for Eurovision content among the Bitchery (and I am still utterly delighted to have introduced some of you to it with my Squee back in May!). It’s fascinating, because even after writing an entire review, I still don’t know whether I loved this movie or hated it. I’m glad so many of you have enjoyed it, though!

    Also, looking at these comments, I feel like the Alexander and Mita sequel would get a lot of support…

    @JillQ – I hadn’t realised Ferrell’s wife was Swedish – that might explain it (and now I’m wondering if the Iceland jokes are Swedish Iceland jokes…).

    @MGW – Rather a pity that they didn’t have Dan and Rachel singing, but it was very good singing, nonetheless!

    @Alison Ustun – I don’t think I’ve seen Dan Stevens in anything, but based on this movie, I’d say your obsession is absolutely warranted. And I’m kind of with @DiscoDollyDeb – clearly, the romantic relationship wouldn’t work between him and Sigrit, but their friendship was adorable.

    @June – I think I read that Alex Lemtov’s song and performance was inspired by the magnificent Cesar from Romania back in 2013, who really is Peak Eurovision for me. I shall attach a link. And oh boy, Hatari was VERY popular with my Eurovision watching party in 2019!

  20. Viktória says:

    I agree with the main points made both in the review and the comments. I was anticipating this movie a lot and had fears about Will Farrell’s character butchering it, but – maybe because I had low expectations in his regard – I was kind of pleasantly surprised? Lars is irritating and a man-child but he fits into the whole Eurovision glamour of ridiculousness in a way. Without him, this movie would probably be one of my favourites of all time for sure. With him, I feel this movie showcases the pathos of Eurovision and satisfies the craving that sometimes comes over me in the interim months between the contests.

    On Rachel McAdams and Dan Stevens, it was such a squeee for me! I was a hardcore Downton Abbey fan and he is Matthew Crawley in the first three seasons, one of my greatest crushes from my teenage years (kind of my adult years too) and McAdams is one of my favourite actresses so that worked on multiple levels. I agree with DiscoDollyDeb, despite the obvious sexual mismatch, I kind of wanted them to rule the world together?

    As a Hungarian, I can 100% attest that Eastern-Europe would vote Double Trouble in with a shipwreck of a performance like that and I agree with Catherine Heloise that Eurovision followers are kinder than they were portrayed – we would cheer the hell out of anything ridiculous, dangerous and impossible (for reference: Greece’s Cosa Mostra: Alcohol is Free – which is also a possible inspiration for the Finance Minister’s ploy of fearing bankruptcy as I distinctly remember our Hungarian commentator joking about that when this song was at first place for like 20 minutes in 2013).

    All in all give me anything with Alexander Lemtov and his fabulous glam slightly Eastern-Europen style of dressing, possibly solving crimes together with Mita and singing over the top Eurovision songs that we can listen to on a loop and I’ll be eternally happy and greatful.

  21. Lisa L. says:

    Thank you for the fabulous review and the link to the film critique by the expert on Icelandic content. From that link I linkety-linked to here

    https://slate.com/culture/2020/06/iceland-eurovision-song-contest-netflix-dadi-freyr-petursson-interview.amp

    …which is beauteous commentary about the movie from Iceland’s 2020 entry for Eurovision. Enjoy!

  22. @Lisa L – that article is a GEM. And also gives me an excuse to link to Daði Freyr’s magnificent song from this year, just in case anyone is foolish enough not to follow your link.

  23. Escapeologist says:

    This sign language interpreter made Hatari’s song 110% more awesome. https://youtu.be/hlc3f08jWdw

  24. Des Livres says:

    So here’s the thing: Australia has been competing in Eurovision for the last few years. Swathes of Australians are devoted to it. It is the highest rated SBS show every year. … Which is presumably why SBS gave them a stack of money to let us join.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ymFX91HwM0

    Not that I have a Lordi ring tone on my phone or anything.

  25. @Escapeologist – that sign language interpreter is fantastic!

    And @DesLivres – greetings, fellow Aussie!

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