Me and Orson Welles – Review

Me and Orson Welles is mixed with the fair balance of comedy and drama that brings the audience through the turmoil and frustration that comes within a play. More so than anything else, it basically puts us into one huge admiring eye for Orson Welles as he puts together the play that’s smaller than his ego. We take a look at the entire story through the eyes of Richard as we are immersed into the fast track world that Welles lives in.

Once you tell people that Richard is being played by Zac Efron, quite a few of them will loose interest immediately. The bias that lingers for a person when it comes to a particular actor happened but faded away as Efron showed a great amount of improvement in his acting than in previous films. Then again, as we enter into the world of Welles, Efron along with his character at times take a back seat to McKay’s scene stealing performance as Orson Welles. McKay basically becomes Welles and the scenes between him and Efron are entertaining and amusing.

To put it bluntly, the story could’ve used somebody else other than Claire Danes as Sonja who’s basically the help and one of the more one sided characters in the bunch. Though there is an eclectic group of characters within the story, nobody else particularly stands out.

Richard Linklater only stands out during the third act of the story when they finally put together the entire play and go into the opening night. The rest of the time he is not as dominant as the couple of performances and wonderful production design capture the audience’s attention. The cinematography unfortunately does not get more creative again until the third act when they’re finally putting together and acting out the whole play. With the direction and cinematography both doing that, it frustrates to a certain extent because then it feels like they are trying to put together the feature in their own way and make it great right before the whole thing ends.

The parts that include Efron with McKay are great but few and far between. The whole aspect of it being an experience between him and Welles does not seen to be as much as it is just being the Orson Welles movie of him stampeding through people with his wit and command. The subplot with Danes is very short lived and some what unnecessary. The part of the story that was the most enjoyable is the entire process of putting together a play, the tension and frustration and anxiety that builds up until the curtain gets pulled back for the opening night performance. If it’s another thing that this film really pins down it’s that experience.

After taking the dive into Me and Orson Welles, one of the few things that’s the strongest in this film is Christian McKay. With the rest of the cast’s decent acting, the some what flip flop directing from Linklater and great look of the film leaves you with a strange feeling once you leave the theater. That strange feeling could ultimately leave you feeling on the fence about the film much like myself.

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