An Orson-less moment from Richard Linklater's period drama, Me and Orson Welles
What a swell concept: A movie about a time in history when movies weren’t primarily about movies. Prior to his film career, American prodigy Orson Welles was a major stage and radio star. Welles is known primarily for three things; scaring the hell out of Americans with his 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast, directing and starring in Citizen Kane (1941) and a couple other black-and-white masterpieces, and dying in 1985, not having directed a film in decades and looking exactly like he did in his Citizen Kane age makeup (his final film roll was the voice of robot planet Unicron in The Transformers: The Movie).
Me and Orson Welles predates all of these claims to greatness. It’s 1937 and Welles and his fledging Mercury Theatre Company are mounting their debut production: Shakespeare’s high tragedy, Julius Caesar, with the setting changed to then-contemporary Fascist Italy. The swinging jazz and art deco opening credits announce that this is indeed a period piece, and director Richard Linklater and his art department army hit every antique target dead centre, from the sets, costumes, hairstyles and lighting right down to the colour saturation and ubiquitous smoking.
Twenty-two-year-old tween heartthrob Zac Efron is Richard Samuels, the high school student who in typical Hollywood “right-place, right-time” fashion lands a small part in the production. Welles, brilliantly embodied by British actor Christian McKay, plays Brutus and directs the Mercury with an iron fist. McKay nails all of Welles’s charm, hubris and tempestuous genius, not to mention his physical appearance and compelling, commanding voice — this guy can project! Claire Danes is effervescent and entrancing as Sonja Jones, the Mercury’s girl Friday (and Welles’s occasional girl Friday night). The supporting cast, including Ben Chaplin and James Tupper portraying real dead actors, is generally very strong.
The biggest issue with this film is its star: Efron is never completely credible as the titular “Me.” His professed love of art and theatre comes across as entirely insincere and his performance is consistently lacking in depth and substance. Surrounded by so many high-wattage personalities and talented actors, Efron is a washout.
The film was shot at Pinewood Studios in England, where 1930s New York is recreated in all its Technicolor glory. The serviceable script (adapted from the novel by Robert Kaplow) is kind of corny, telegraphing its plot points well in advance. But Claire Danes does look gosh-darn sexy in ’30s dress, hairstyle and makeup, and Me and Orson Welles is an equally pleasant and pretty, if not particularly profound, period piece. It’s neither comedy nor tragedy, more like light drama, and if all that seems like damning the film with faint praise, well, it probably is.
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