Review: Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, Netflix
I watched Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga starring our Canadian gemstone Rachel McAdams . . . and also Will Ferrell is in it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s impossible not to tip our hats to the comedy legend himself, but in a movie that should have been filled with camp, kitsch and a tone of bravado that is infamous for the real Eurovision, Will Ferrell did not deliver on the loaded potential of throwing the spotlight on one of the most famous singing contests in the world - one that already came with 9 spotlights.
And the fact that he is playing opposite the porcelain elven goddess of York University, Rachel McAdams, is laughable.
I’m not saying I, for example, would be better suited to play opposite the living treasure of London, Ontario, clad in rainbow boho ice queen garb throughout the film, I’m just saying that perhaps a female counterpart would be exactly what this film is inherently missing.
The film follows two small-town singers, Lars and Sigrit, who started singing together at a very young age that they both were at the exact same time and Will Ferrell is definitely not in reality 11 years older than Rachel McAdams because it’s Hollywood after all and if they chose an actress who was really as old as Will Ferrell, apparently our eyes would burn out of their sockets.
Maybe the casting agent knew that even through their lacklustre romantic storyline (that is constantly referred to as incestuous throughout the film) we, the audience, still deserved to be enchanted by the magnetic smile of the Saint of St.Thomas herself.
Lars and Sigrit follow their dreams to the global music competition, Eurovision Song Contest, once every runner up from Iceland is murdered in a freak boat fire. This includes Demi Lovato, who starred in Camp Rock, which was filmed at a YMCA camp in Donald, Ontario, so one could argue that her bodacious deep vocals could have been starring opposite Rachel McAdams for the duration of the film. Their romantic storyline would have proved much more enthralling than the one we are forced to trudge through.
Sigrit and Lars are suddenly thrust into the world of Eurovision’s artists and their even more eccentric parties. The party scene is filled with actual Eurovision stars they cast for the “sing off” *cough cough Pitch Perfect rip off*. One could argue that Dan Steven’s character, Lemtov and Melissanthi Mahut’s character, Mita Xenakis, are two of the only performances that feel naturally rooted in the reality of Eurovision. One could even argue that the gorgeous, enigmatic Mita would prove to be an excellent female counterpart for our starlet McAdams, as she too is a Canadian treasure.
In fact, Melissanthi Mahut is a Canadian Greek human mermaid siren. She is in her mid twenties, famous for her voice work and acting in the video game classic, Assassin’s Creed, and she absolutely shines in this film. But what do the filmmakers do with this strong Amazonian Canadian divinity? Her character immediately throws herself at Will Ferrell’s walking mid life crisis, Lars, whom she finds sexually irresistible. And with that I slammed my laptop close, screamed “NOPE” and walked out of the room, having to return to the film hours later.
This is all to say that the real Eurovision Song Contest has a level of terrible laughable seriousness, camp and European queerness that this film could not wholly grasp. I’ll leave it to Caspar Salmon’s review in The Guardian to wrap up: “Ferrell’s fame, Americanness and straightness mean that the film, in aiming for a mainstream comedy audience, misses the boat on campness…a deep understanding of, love for or personal investment in homosexuality certainly [would have] helped”. If that is not a glaringly obvious argument that I should have played opposite Rachel McAdams in this movie, I don’t know what is.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga was released June 26, 2020 on Netflix.
