Me and Orson Welles Review
Monday, August 2, 2010
, Posted by Should I See It at 2:23 AM
Film: Me and Orson Welles.
Director: Richard Linklater.
Starring: Zac Efron, Claire Danes, Christian McKay.
Plot: A week in the life of teenager Richard Samuels (Efron), who finds himself cast in Orson Welles’ 1937 production of Julius Caesar. Based on the novel of the same name by Robert Kaplow.
Rating:
I have been waiting a long time to see Me and Orson Welles, especially considering it was first released two years ago at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Originally, I was sceptical about the casting of Efron in the lead role. However, he is good. Solid. Not fantastic. In some scenes he is stronger than others. This film was shot between High School Musicals 2 and 3, which may explain some of the lackluster of Efron’s performance. Say what you will about High School Musical 3 and 17 Again, but these films proved Efron’s charisma and ability to carry a film. In Me and Orson Welles, Efron does well, but perhaps he was not quite ready for this role. He is often overshadowed by his co-stars, though he does work particularly well with Danes, who plays Welles’ girl Friday.
The real revelation is Christian McKay as Orson Welles. Making his film debut, McKay carries the film in a way Efron cannot. To be fair, McKay is playing Orson Welles, the sheer magnitude of his presence would suggest that if McKay DIDN’T steal every scene he was in, he would not be doing his job.
One scene in particular, during the rehearsals for Caesar, McKay delivers a soliloquy in such a way that you believe you are watching Welles, not an actor playing him. To call McKay an impersonator is to complete disservice to his ability. Not only does he look like a young Orson Welles, but he completely inhabits him. McKay has a presence, he captures the bravado that Welles had, the bravado that only comes with sheer genius. I think I can join the chorus of voices who say that McKay was snubbed by the Academy for a Best Supporting Actor nod.
Welles infamously cut the script of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar down to under 100 minutes running time. Linklater provides us with roughly ten minutes of the opening night performance. Julius Caesar is wonderfully recreated, demonstrating a huge amount of research on behalf of the film makers. I found myself wishing I could borrow Doc Brown’s time machine and head on back to 1937 and watch the actual production.
The side plot, involving Richard meeting an aspiring writer Gretta (Zoe Kazan, who reminded me of Regina Spektor in this, no idea why) feels shoe horned in (it did in the novel, too). The chemistry in those scenes feels a little off.
The soundtrack is wonderfully bright, fully of Jazz standards. I particularly admire that period in music: it gave birth to so many classic songs. The opening scenes, where Richard and Gretta discuss the death of Gershwin and the beauty of Richard Rogers’ melodies, makes you remember that those ‘oldies’ were indeed once new songs.
My major gripe with the film was a distinct lack of air and space. Not a lot of filming was done on location in New York, most of the filming was done on soundstages in London (and, bizarrely, the Isle of Man), and thus the film has a very enclosed feel; which is fine inside the theatre, but the stagey-ness of the exterior scenes in particular made it difficult to be fully immersed in the film.
Essentially, Me and Orson Welles is a film about the theatre and all that goes on before opening night- the backstage politics, the disastrous rehearsals. It hypothesises what it would have been like to work with Welles: all the ‘waiting for Orson,’ the abuse, the drama of working with a genius; yet, the applause of an overwhelmed audience makes it worth it.
Perhaps Me and Orson Welles doesn’t quite pack the emotional punches it intends to, but you leave the cinema warm and fuzzy and content.
Should I See It?
