The trailer for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story has been released ahead of its November 4th release. The film stars Daniel Radcliffe as the legendary comedian and music parodist Weird Al in a film that depicts his life and career.
The trailer garnered attention online for its parody of the ever-popular biopic genre, in keeping with Weird Al's musicality and comedy. Its zany humor and approach to more fictionalized storytelling in a biographical film are in a similar style to other films that avoid the usual conventions of the biopic model.
Elvis (2022)
Actor Austin Butler filled in the blue suede shoes of Elvis Presley, the king of rock 'n' roll, in this Baz Luhrmann biopic. Told through the eyes of Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker (played by Tom Hanks), the film chronicles Presley's trailblazing rise to the top, before his career decline, comeback, and tragic death.
Just like any Baz Luhrmann movie, Elvis is an aesthetically flamboyant portrayal of life lived to the fullest and the simultaneous euphoria and devastation that comes with excess. Unlike many biopics, Elvis is not overly concerned with laying out the facts of Elvis' life and career, instead opting for a Vegas-esque exploration of the American Dream and all that glitters.
Spencer (2021)
From director Pablo Larraín, director of Jackie (2017), comes his second film surrounding one of history's most famous figures in British Royal history, Princess Diana of Wales (née Diana Spencer). Kristen Stewart plays the late princess reluctantly attending Christmas at Queen Elizabeth's Sandringham estate as her marriage irreparably breaks down in this psychological thriller.
Just like Jackie, Larraín ditches the biopic trope of portraying a famous person's entire life. Instead, the director prefers to chronicle what is arguably the worst week in the life of the slighted wives of famous and powerful men. A deeply intimate, often claustrophobic, interpretation of Diana's mind, best biopics of 2021, as well as one of the best films of that year.
Marie Antoinette (2006)
Directed by Sofia Coppola, Marie Antoinette follows the last years of 's final queen before the French Revolution. The young teenage Austrian monarch navigates her way through her transition into French royalty and institutional sexism before the Revolution drives her family out of their Parisian home.
Marie Antoinette leans into deliberate historical inaccuracies, perhaps most notably when Marie has Converse trainers in her vast shoe collection. Told through the eyes of the young queen as she comes of age, the film is rather uninterested in portraying the political forces of the French Revolution.
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)
Walk Hard follows Dewey Cox, an early pioneer of rock music, from his tragic childhood to untimely death. The film follows Cox on his journey through addiction, meeting Elvis and The Beatles, before his eventual downfall and career revival.
The twist of this biopic is that Dewey Cox is a fictional character and not a real musician as the film claims to portray. Rather, this biopic is a meta form of celebrity storytelling, purposefully utilizing all the pitfalls and clichés of the biopic genre to create a parody film. Still, the sentiment in the film provides the comedy with the heart that made the biopic genre so popular in the first place.
I, Tonya (2017)
I, Tonya depicts the rise and fall of Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding, who was accused of involvement in an attack on rival figure skater Nancy Kerrigan. The film follows her difficult childhood and troubled marriage as she attempts to achieve perfection in figure skating.
One of Margot Robbie's best movies and arguably her greatest performance, I, Tonya is centered around interviews of the main characters that offer conflicting narratives on Tonya's rise to the top and her role in the Nancy Kerrigan incident. Unconcerned with getting the facts right about Tonya's life, the final result is a bombastic, fourth-wall-breaking thrill ride.
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Martin Scorsese's three-hour epic chronicles the rise and fall of former stockbroker Jordan Belfort. Upon his new job at Wall Street in the late 1980s, Belfort becomes quickly enticed into the yuppie culture of the time (and all the sex, drugs, and money that comes with it) before creating the fraudulent Stratton Oakmont broker firm.
In true Scorsese style, the film fully embraces the world of white-collar crime, taking the audience through a decades-long drug trip, with all the highs and comedowns along the way. Whereas many films surrounding real-life crime give the victims a platform, The Wolf of Wall Street goes for full-on hedonism.
Vice (2018)
Vice is a satirical look at the life of Dick Cheney, Vice President to President George W. Bush and key proponent of the US invasion of Iraq in the early 2000s. The film depicts Cheney manipulating his own personal manifesto into the policies of the more naive Bush during their election and a subsequent premiership.
Narrated through the perspective of a fictionalized Iraq veteran, this political biopic takes an objectively critical look at one of the most powerful men in American politics. The film even has a false ending midway through, where the movie "ends" and the credits start to roll before Cheney's disastrous decision-making in the White House.
Dolemite Is My Name (2019)
Eddie Murphy stars as early blaxploitation filmmaker Rudy Ray Moore, known for the character of Dolemite, in this biopic. The film shows the star's early struggle with getting his films into production before adopting the more confident, although fictional, Dolemite persona.
Dolemite is My Name is an unconventional tale of a man trying to get his unconventional films produced. Rather than a more linear narrative of the life of Rudy Ray Moore, the biopic opts to portray the fictional version that Moore aspires to, and all his shortcomings in his talent for filmmaking.
Amadeus (1984)
Hailed as one of the best music biopics of all time, Amadeus portrays the life of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Set in Mozart's native Vienna, Austira, the film opens with rival composer Antonio Sallieri confessing to Mozart's murder and recounting their rivalry through his confession.
In real life, however, Sallieri and Mozart were contemporaries and held no animosity towards one another, and Mozart was not poisoned. Instead, this fictional take on the life of the composer makes for a fantasy thrill ride through the formation of western music.
My Dinner With Hervé (2018)
My Dinner With Hervé follows a journalist assigned to interview Hervé Villechaize, an actor with dwarfism known for his role in the James Bond franchise. When Hervé feels that his interview was insufficient, the actor tracks him down to set the record straight.
While most biopics opt to portray the lives of the most well-known celebrities, My Dinner WIth Hervé deservingly shines a light on an actor whose contributions to film and television are often left unappreciated. Representation of disabled people or people with bodily differences is rare in Hollywood, and Peter Dinklage's portrayal provides humanity to Hervé that is seldom granted.
