(Spoilers from the start.)
Aside from the fact there's already a Eurovision film that bears striking parallels to this one and is better than an EBU-overseen brand extension could ever hope to be, was anyone really clamoring for a Eurovision movie? Is this whole enterprise an exercise in marketing the contest to U.S. audiences before Eurovision America begins? Having finally watched the cumbersomely titled Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga this week, I'm gonna review it by going through the film's plot summary on Wikipedia section by section and discussing what I felt worked and what didn't. Here we go:
In the small town of Húsavík, Iceland, Lars Erickssong and Sigrit Ericksdóttir, best friends since childhood, make music together as the band Fire Saga, much to the dismay of Lars' widowed father, Erick. Lars has one dream: to win the Eurovision Song Contest. The pair apply and are randomly selected to take part in Söngvakeppnin, the Icelandic pre-selection for Eurovision. Sigrit, who believes in the old Icelandic tradition of elves, asks them to help them in the contest in the hope that, if they win, Lars will finally return her romantic feelings for him. Due to technical difficulties, Fire Saga's performance is a disaster, and the talented Katiana Lindsdóttir wins the pre-selection. Lars, dejected, declines to attend the boat party thrown for all the finalists and sits disappointed on the dock as Sigrit tries to comfort him. The boat suddenly explodes, killing everyone on board. Fire Saga, as the only surviving contestants, automatically become Iceland's entry to the 2020 Eurovision Song Contest.
This is easily the strongest segment of the film. I was on board pretty much the whole time and would give this opening half-hour a 9/10. The film succeeds as a cod-folksy love letter to Iceland far more than as a romcom or music movie. Provincial Iceland may be portrayed in a rather dated, stereotypical manner, but in some ways this merely amplifies the charm - there's so much genuine warmth here, and lots of Icelandic actors heavily involved and used in smart ways. Parts of the dialog in this section, especially that of the two protagonists, sound like they've been awkwardly translated into English, and it's a left-field choice that works surprisingly well, lending an 'Allo 'Allo-like feel to proceedings. The meeting at the public broadcaster is great (the film captures the behind-the-scenes of a national final much better than it captures the behind-the-scenes of Eurovision), and the twist in which Fire Saga is chosen to represent Iceland is hilarious and dark, echoing the classic Simpsons episode Lisa The Beauty Queen (in which Lisa finishes second in a pageant but ends up taking the trophy after the winner is struck by lightning due to her metal scepter).
Lars and Sigrit arrive in Edinburgh, Scotland, where Eurovision is being held. Once there, they struggle with a new remix of their song and Lars' desire for an elaborate stage design. They meet Alexander Lemtov, a Russian singer who is the favorite to win the contest. He invites them to a party at his house, attended by a number of real former Eurovision contestants, where he introduces Lars and Sigrit to the Greek contestant Mita Xenakis.
Edinburgh and the Hydro are used well as locations, and the party into which Lars and Sigrit are thrust is an exciting introduction to the Eurovision world that augurs well, capturing the reality of a lavish delegation party pretty authentically and contrasting well with the parochial setting of the first half-hour. Viewers new to the contest are likely to feel as dazzled and out of their depth as Lars and Sigrit do. The singalong ("song-along" is not a word) feels a little too much like a brand extension but it's fine as these things go, and Salvador's earlier cameo is lovely too.
Alexander and Sigrit spend the night together, as do Lars and Mita (although neither pair has sex). This creates tensions within Fire Saga, and almost derails their plans for the semifinal. Lars overhears Sigrit working on a new song in their hotel room and wrongly assumes it is a love song for Alexander. Katiana's ghost appears to Lars and warns him that his life is in danger; he ignores her.
This is when the wheels start to come off. I'll cut to the chase and say that the parts of this film that don't work are the parts that are a below-average Will Ferrell romcom, which is about 70% of it, and it's from around this point on that the standard romcom tropes (the guy and the girl each think the other has slept with someone else, there's a conflict and separation leading up to a final reconciliation) take over. I wouldn't mind if they were better-done, but the script is poor for much of the remaining runtime. It's not that I dislike American humor - I love Judd Apatow comedies - it's that Ferrell's particular brand of humor just doesn't work for me.
Dan Stevens's performance and Russian accent are superb, and a parody of flamboyant post-Soviet popstars like Philipp Kirkorov and Nikolai Baskov is long overdue. (Lemtov feels like a cross between Kirkorov and Chris Lilley's Mr G.) Almost all the credit here goes to Dan Stevens and the production, because the actual material that the Lemtov character is given turns out to be terrible. The film creates this great character and then doesn't know what to do with him. His motivation for trying to come between Lars and Sigrit, seemingly wanting to be a svengali to Sigrit and to sabotage Fire Saga's chances in the contest, is poorly articulated. (If the Icelandic act is notorious for being so bad, why would he see them as a threat?) Mita comes off even worse as her character is less memorable and even more poorly defined. Basically, despite all pretences, these two only exist to be "the other man" and "the other woman" who come between Lars and Sigrit because the film requires a central conflict/comic mixup. (As a side note, I think the make-up job on Katiana - another good character who's wasted - is a fraction too gory. Something like this needs to be a family film, and while a few stray innuendos in song lyrics easily go over kids' heads, this could be quite scary to younger viewers. The penises on the statues at the party are also a bit much given that Eurovision itself is a family-friendly event, therefore this film should be too.)
Fire Saga reconcile before the semifinals. The performance of their song "Double Trouble" initially goes very well, but is derailed by an accident involving Sigrit's scarf and a giant hamster wheel. They recover and finish the song, but are met with deafening silence and scattered laughter. Thinking that Fire Saga have become a laughingstock, they exit the stage. Lars, humiliated, refuses to go and sit with the other artists to await the rankings, feeling that there is no chance for Fire Saga. Sigrit pleads with him to stay, put on a brave face, and not let Iceland down, even though she, too, believes they lost. Angry, and thinking that Sigrit wrote the new song for Alexander, Lars says something dismissive about the song. Sigrit then tells him that she wrote it for him. Lars is stunned; nevertheless, he returns to Iceland. However, as Sigrit learns to her surprise, Fire Saga actually is voted through to the finals.
Right, so, the accident: it's an ingenious comic idea on paper, and it's fairly well-directed too. If you're gonna have a funny on-stage accident that epitomises Eurovision, this is exactly the kind of thing to go for. However, it unfortunately doesn't work anywhere near as well as it should because it's ridiculously over-telegraphed. Before the semifinal we get a scene in which Lars and Sigrit specifically discuss the LONG SCARF she's wearing, in a way that's clearly for the audience's benefit. If your attention span is sufficiently short that you've forgotten this information again by the time the semifinal is underway, then don't worry, because here's Graham Norton to directly tell the audience (via his role as commentator) that Sigrit is wearing a LONG SCARF and that he hopes it doesn't get caught in the wheel. The visual joke is clever enough to stand up on its own, and I really wish the film had just let it unfold instead of explaining the gag to the audience in precise detail a few seconds before it happens, apparently on the assumption that some viewers have such poor visual comprehension that they won't understand the scene just by watching it and instead need it literally explained to them. (Even if the film were insistent on explaining the mechanics of the accident in dialog in case any audience members weren't paying attention, this would have been much better-placed immediately after the setpiece than before it.) It's like having someone say to Del Boy "I hope you don't fall through the bar" right before he does. It kills the joke.
Despite the accident, Lars and Sigrit pick themselves up, brush themselves off and triumphantly finish the song. This is met with deathly silence by the audience, which strains credibility and seems a really forced script choice - we all know that pretty much any audience anywhere is more sympathetic and supportive when something goes wrong or when a contestant is nervous or unsure. It's not until Lars and Sigrit have left for the green room that the audience finally applauds their performance, and again this seems a really forced script choice so that Lars and Sigrit don't see and hear how much support they have, because the central conflict requires that Lars dejectedly return to Iceland without even realizing that Fire Saga have qualified, which is impossible.
Lars returns to Húsavík, unaware of Fire Saga's advancement in the contest. Out on a fishing boat, he talks with his father and confesses his love for Sigrit, and Erick tells him to go back and fight for her love. However, both are unaware that Iceland is in the finals. When they are told, they both are deeply shocked. Lars jumps off the boat and swims to shore.
Unlike the opening half-hour, none of this Iceland segment works... apart from:
On his way to Reykjavík, Victor Karlosson (governor of the Central Bank of Iceland, and one of the Icelandic organisational team members) attempts to murder Lars and reveals he blew up the boat at Söngvakeppnin, as Iceland is bankrupt and cannot afford to host Eurovision the following year if Fire Saga wins. Luckily, unseen elves save Lars by killing Victor.
There's a Father Ted element to this scene, and the door of the elf house slamming shut is directed very well. A funny, clever idea.
Lars makes it to the grand finale just in time to perform, after hitchhiking with some initially unwilling American tourists, whom he subjects to comments containing negative stereotypes of Americans. A ghost Katiana appears to warn Lars, but he informs her that the man who tried to kill him killed everyone on the boat is dead. Interrupting the beginning of Sigrit's song, he encourages her to ditch their official entry and perform the song she has written for him, "Húsavík". Watching at home, their friends and families are all touched, discovering that the song is not only an ode to their town, featuring lyrics in Icelandic and a stunning finale, but a beautiful song that grips the entire auditorium. Erick watches the contest proudly with Sigrit's mother, Helka.
The scenes with the U.S. tourists work on the whole, though the first scene with them is easily the best - the subsequent scenes begin to feel over-labored. Still, it's among the film's better ideas. The Húsavík performance and switch to Icelandic works emotionally even if the surrounding comedy doesn't - as a climactic moment of emotional catharsis it's a smart choice, as well as a good comment on the homogenization of the contest and the importance of Eurovision performers singing music from the heart that they have an authentic connection to.
Alexander, who is revealed to be gay, bemoans the fact that his country does not accept homosexuality, and considers the possibility of moving to Greece with Mita. Fire Saga are disqualified for changing their song during the contest, but both Lars and Sigrit have lost interest in winning the competition, realizing that their relationship is more important. On stage, they share their first kiss, finally giving in to the feelings they have long had for each other. Fire Saga returns home, where they are greeted with a hero's welcome. Some time later, Lars and Sigrit have had a baby, and Erick and Helka have just gotten married. Fire Saga performs at their wedding reception in the local bar, with the American tourists in attendance (which Lars again hammers with negative stereotypes, but which the Americans think is just an attempt at humor). The band offers to play their Eurovision song, but everyone just wants to hear the local favorite folk song, "JaJa Ding Dong".
OK, so we have an official Eurovision film that's centered around a heterosexual love story, and the villains who try to sabotage their relationship are a flamboyant, closeted eastern European gay man and a sexually assertive Balkan woman with a lesbian-themed stage performance. The film concludes with the antagonist (who has no male love interest or narrative thread other than pursuing Sigrit and trying to derail Fire Saga) admitting his homosexuality between the lines, and his related unhappiness (due to living in Russia), while our western European straight heroes kiss on stage, then return to their beloved village, marry and have a baby. (Talk about a manifested organic element.)
This reminds me of nothing more than High School Musical, not just because of the bad dubbing of some of the songs. Lemtov and Mita are pretty close copies of Ryan and Sharpay, right down to their motivations and the type of man and type of woman they represent (Ryan and Lemtov are both closeted gay men sublimating their sexuality into elaborate musical performance), while Lars and Sigrit are Troy and Gabriella. (See also how confident, experienced Sharpay/Mita is contrasted with demure, humble Sigrit/Gabriella.) It almost feels like they took High School Musical as a plot template but made it worse. I know The Apple has elements of this framework too, with the fey, Machiavellian villains using sexuality to tear the central straight protagonists away from each other, but in The Apple it works because the film is queer through-and-through. (And in HSM it works better because it's a 2000s Disney film for kids, and because amid all the cheesiness, the plot and structure are a lot more on point than in this.)
About that "There are no gay Russians" line: I like it. I like that the film went there - it's subtle, clever humor with a point. If the film had left the topic at that, it would have been perfect. What I didn't like was the final Lemtov-Mita scene and the film's handling of Lemtov overall. I think my issue is to do with the fact that this is an official Eurovision Song Contest film co-produced by the EBU (and featuring myriad ESC acts) that sees fit to suggest that gay Eurovision singers from countries where they can't be publicly open about their sexual orientation (regardless of the extent to which they're out to themselves and in their personal and professional lives) are automatically unhappy and tormented figures, even as contestants matching this biography continue to compete in the contest on a near-annual basis. It felt like we were being lectured from an American, homonationalist perspective, bankrolled by the EBU. Meanwhile, another year will bring another Sergey Lazarev, Dima Bilan, Damir Kedžo or Vasil Garvanliev, none of whom strike me as particularly conflicted, tormented or unhappy. I can't emphasize enough that someone's sexuality is a personal thing for them to negotiate how they wish, and that there is no onus on gay people (even those who are already out to friends and family, or within their industry) to "come out" to the wider public, and it's absolutely not the case that someone isn't being their "true self" or living their best life just because they live in a society where announcing their sexual orientation to the wider public isn't yet possible or advisable. I have to go back to Part 5 of Queer As Turbofolk, when I discussed this in relation to the Balkan pop-folk industry, and quote myself: "The default modern Western position of 'everybody out' is one reactive to a past where being out wasn't an option and the closet was something obligatory and forced on people, but it's also one of privilege. Many people, while living a gay life in private and being out to some or all of their friends, family and colleagues, simply aren’t in a position to fly a rainbow flag to the world and shouldn’t be condemned for not doing so. As long as gay people are out to themselves, and don’t try and deceive themselves and others by conducting doomed relationships with the opposite sex [...] that’s all that matters. [...] Laws can’t change culture overnight, and people have good reason to keep their sexual orientation private. For many, the closet is a vital safe space – and trying to force people out of it, out of a misguided belief in openness for openness’s sake and that the closet is always bad for the person concerned – can be damaging and counterproductive. [...] So coming out in a vacuum, when the surrounding culture isn’t ready, isn’t the answer, just as pride parades aren’t necessarily effective or culturally appropriate when transplanted out of their original American context into countries where parades are more associated with ideological mobilization or occupying armies."
So yes, it feels like the film, which has been released under the official Eurovision brand, turns gay eastern European performers into a joke merely because their sexuality is an open secret rather than a stated fact, while simultaneously sneering at their societies for not being as progressive and gay-friendly as we are in the western countries that the film is aimed at (patting itself on the back while doing so). Most of all, the Lemtov character is just wasted, and it feels like you're laughing at him rather than with him - his flamboyant contest entry is great both musically and visually, but aside from being sexy and camp in a way I enjoy sincerely, it's mainly there for mainstream straight audiences to laugh at how gay it is. I hate that, and the way that Mita's highly sexualized lesbian-themed stage performance is used to essentially establish her villainy as her character is introduced also feeds into this. And it's because of this undercurrent most of all, as well as the dire plotting from the mid-section onwards and the fact that hardly any of the jokes land, that I didn't feel this film was for me at all, or that it understood the gayness of Eurovision. And if you don't understand the gayness of Eurovision...
