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Me and Orson Welles Our rating: Rate this movie   Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: PG-13 (for sexual references and smoking) Genre: Drama Theater release: November 25, 2009 by Freestyle Releasing Directed by: Richard Linklater Runtime: 1 hour 47 minutes Cast: Zac Efron (Richard Samuels), Claire Danes (Sonja Jones), Christian McKay (Orson Welles) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Anyone who ever made it in the entertainment business got there because of some "big break." But do these breaks happen because of luck? Or talent? Or both? In Me and Orson Welles, directed by Richard Linklater (Waking Life), we witness the early days of one of Hollywood's most successful icons and can decide for ourselves whether luck or talent plays a bigger role in his success.

This movie tells Welles' story through the eyes of a wide-eyed high school student named Richard (Zac Efron) who, in 1937 New York, stumbles into a small role in a production of Julius Caesar that Welles (Christian McKay) is staging in his newly formed Mercury Theater on Broadway. The film is a sort of behind-the-scenes look at the wild world of theater in general, and particularly the even wilder world of Welles—a womanizing, narcissistic, magnetic force of American nature destined for greatness. Richard is in over his head, for sure, and next to Welles he's about as embarrassingly minute as Miley Cyrus would be if she starred in a film opposite Judi Dench.

Christian McKay as Orson Welles

Perhaps that's why, when Richard goes head-to-head against Welles over a woman (Claire Danes) later in the film, it's hard to root for Richard's success. He's outmatched in every way by Welles, and even if he is more virtuous and less tainted by ruthless ambition, he's painstakingly boring by comparison. But maybe he's just young. How interesting can a high school teen be, anyway?

None of this is Efron's fault. The former Disney Channel/High School Musican star is perfectly fresh-faced and innocuous in the part, and he capably embodies the sort of "aw shucks, mister!" vibe of a raised-in-the-Depression New York youth. But Efron can't help the fact the film's real star—the British actor Christian McKay as Welles—is infinitely more compelling to watch. McKay, who looks impressively similar to man himself, perfectly captures Welles' thunderous bravado and penchant for the melodramatic. Though at times it might tilt a little too far in the direction of caricature, McKay's portrayal is for the most part dead-on.

Zac Efron as Richard Samuels

As for the rest of the cast, Danes is a standout as an eager-beaver member of the Mercury company who will do anything (and sleep with anyone) in order to get ahead. On the soul-deadening ambition scale, she's somewhere between the innocence of Richard and the ruthlessness of Welles. So perhaps it makes sense that she's romantically linked with both.

The story plays out against the "clearly a set" backdrop of 30s-era Manhattan, though the majority of the film was shot inside the Gaiety Theatre on the British Isle of Man (and indeed, most of the cast is British too—largely the Royal Shakespeare Company). The visuals are magnificent, to be sure, but at times the film feels a tad claustrophobic and stagey. It's all so blocked and clean and colorful, when the messy, black-and-white New York of that era might seem a more logical fit (and cheaper too). But Linklater's stylistic choices are doubtless all very intentional.

Linklater's films are often heavy on dialogue and slight on action (though this isn't necessarily a bad thing). Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Slacker, and Tape are made up entirely of conversations: Just people talking and walking and waxing philosophical. These films put the spotlight on the question of what cinema is and how it differs from theater. If it's just people talking, why not just write it as a play? What are the benefits of playing for the camera's eye as opposed to the theater-going audience's attention? Me and Orson Welles—a movie about theater, focused on an iconic film director—asks these questions with appropriately theatrical gusto.

Leo Bill as Norman Lloyd

Linklater and cinematographer Dick Pope (Happy-Go-Lucky, Vera Drake) playfully draw attention to the cinematic presence of the camera. Though we are watching "theater," our point of view is not fixed as an audience's might be. Rather, the camera is constantly moving, swooping hither and yon, getting up in the face of the actors. Liberal use of tracking shots, slow zooms, and other "this is what a camera can do!" tricks (including some mise en scene depth-of-field setups Welles would have liked) make a point to underscore the filmic reality of this otherwise theater-centric story.

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