A week in the life of a player in 1937, those early days of Orson Welles’ famed Mercury Theatre, might sound like it can’t encompass much, but you may be forgetting just what a towering figure Welles was. After seeing this film, you won’t seen forget it; nor will you soon forget Christian McKay who plays him. Zac Efron, as the young actor swept up into the maelstrom of the Mercury Theatre, may be the lead in this film, but McKay is most definitely the star. McKay has the ungovernable fire, the burning eyes, the imperious tone, and the ticking brain box of Welles down. In this script he is endowed by every other character with a panoply of larger-than-life qualities and he portrays them all without ever turning into a cartoon. His performance alone merits a viewing.
Efron seems to me to be beginning to travel the Johnny Depp career path, and I hope he is as fortunate as Mr. Depp in doing so. After High School Musical (21 Jump Street, anyone?) he has generally made choices that demand he produce more than just another singing dreamboat. In this film, no one responds to him as if he is anything special, as if he doesn’t have a laser-cut facial structure, and we get to see him act. His interactions with a young, ambitious writer (Zoe Kazan) aren’t about him charming her off her feet, but her passion inspiring him. His Richard is earnest, eager, young, positive, and full of trust. We care about this kid and he humanizes the surreality of his adventure in Welles’ orbit. Claire Danes warns him to guard himself from Welles, but not from her charms. She plays her part with a mellow, womanly confidence and wise resignation, it’s an interesting fence between self-actualized and beholden that she straddles. Ben Chaplin plays George Coulouris, a real-life actor who went on to be in Welles’ seminal 1941 film Citizen Kane. Chaplin nails that particular transatlantic cadence that marks the period (he, like Coulouris, is British) and gives us a sense of the rest of the cast in the shadows of their director and star.
The film centers around the week before opening of Welles’ daring production of Shakespeare’s (Julius) Casear. He takes very modern artistic liberties during the very fecund 1930’s and defines his career and character thus. A member of my audience actually saw this production when he was a child. He said he didn’t remember much, but he did recall the impact of the uniforms. I am still jealous. The late 1930’s was such a rich time for the arts, with the WPA and the responses to WWI and the Depression and Black Friday and the news coming over from Europe about fascism on the rise. It’s an exciting time in history and an exciting week in Richard’s life as well. Me and Orson Welles speaks of the transformative power of creating art and the power of those who can create it over others. It’s also a little coming of age, a little romance, and a lot of enjoying the spectacle of Welles and Caesar.
Robert Kaplow’s novel was inspired by a photograph from this play of an unknown actor playing lute next to Welles in a scene. The film isn’t pat, it isn’t aimless, and it isn’t epic. It’s just a nice tidy wondering about that bit player and what his life must have been like, with the sweet aftertaste of a fable. What surprised me the most about this film is that it was directed by Richard Linklater, a man whose work almost universally bores me. All my usual issues with Linklater (dialogue, pacing) are gone here and as a result I got to really enjoy the story. I thrilled to my geeky bones over all the delicious period details and the visceral emulation of the chaos of a disorganized theatre production. Me and Orson Welles taken as a whole isn’t going to set the world on fire, but it is a well made, nicely-performed fable about art and self-actualization and theatre. It’s worth a look.
MPAA Rating PG-13
Release date 12/11/09
Time in minutes 109
Director Richard Linklater
Studio CinemaNX
