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Me and Orson Welles

movies|me%20and%20orson%20welles|2010-07-29

Set in 1937, the story centers on a high school student who, while strolling the streets of New York, happens upon the yet-to-open Mercury Theatre and is noticed by its mercurial founder, Orson Welles. The man lands a bit part in 'Julius Caesar', the production that catapulted Welles to the top, and spends the next week learning about life and love.

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Editorial

When Simon Callow set out to write a biography of Orson Welles, he found his subject too big for one volume. Similarly, it's unlikely there'll ever be a full biopic because, like Citizen Kane, Harry Lime and Mr Arkadin, Welles showed many faces to many people over the years. However, a growing library of Welles-themed films exists.

Richard Linklater's film of Robert Kaplow's novel, which somehow makes the Isle Of Man convincing as the Isle Of Manhattan, sits comfortably between Cradle Will Rock, The Night That Panicked America, and RKO 281. Linklater scores over other Welles films in one crucial area: Christian McKay is the best screen Welles stand-in to date, easily raising the bar set by Angus Macfadyen, Liev Schreiber, Vincent D'Onofrio and Danny Huston.

McKay uncannily resembles the young Welles and catches the familiar mannerisms but, more importantly, he inhabits the role of a man who was always "on": radiating the charisma that made people stick with him no matter how big a bastard he could be, stopping every so often to improvise lyrical speeches, weaselling out of crises by leaving human wreckage in his wake, clowning like a baby, and pulling great art out of himself.

Around Orson Welles, the film weaves a conventional but nicely turned tale about a youth's first steps in theatre, with Zac Efron creditably turning down his natural star quality to seem like a hesitant beginner and striking sparks off leading ladies Claire Danes and Zoe Kazan. Like Cradle Will Rock, Me And Orson Welles is also a careful account of a legendary stage production, a "fascist Caesar" with Mussolini uniforms and Nuremberg lighting. Heroic work from Ben Chaplin, Leo Bill and Kelly Reilly as real actors, and more terrific support from Eddie Marsan as long-suffering producer John Houseman. Bravo.

Kim Newman