Eurovision works in spite of itself...

Rating: 7/10 (26 June 2020)

This new offering from Netflix is a weird, wacky romcom starring Will Ferrell, Rachel McAdams and Pierce Brosnan.
While this movie never really treads new ground, it steadily reels you in largely because of the three leads. Ferrell and McAdams play two grown childhood friends who sing together as a duo/band with aspirations(mainly Ferrell's) to hit the big time and make it to a singing competition in Europe called Eurovision. McAdams happily does most of Lars' bidding because she's not so secretly in love with Lars. Truth be told, she's a far better singer than Lars by an Icelandic icy mile(I have no idea what that means). But, it's Lars' ambition that propels them to keep it through gigs.
They both decide to enter into an Icelandic singing contest that's sort of regional qualifier for Eurovision. Through some tragic, but funny plotting they both find themselves in the big show as it were.
Once in Eurovision they find they're just small minnows in a pool of big time sharks, hungry sharks at that. Enter the lusty, sexually disoriented Russian pop heartthrob Lemtov, lustily and tongue in cheekily played by Dan Stevens of Downton Abbey Fame. Now, we've all seen the plot mechanics where situations arise that place our heroes in romantic peril. This flick also mines that well trodden territory as well.
That said, this is where all of a sudden something strange takes place. The movie creeps up on the viewer and makes them start rooting for Sigrit and Lars. So much so, it's quite perplexing to figure out. That's why as someone who's seen countless RomComs, I whole heartedly must recommend this film because towards the last third of the film you actually care for the main characters and the entirety of their whole Icelandic crew. I think you'll find this weird kinship with how Icelanders must feel about their country and their little corner of the world. 7 stars...