A small but revealing inside look at Orson Welles at the crisis of his life and the inside story of glamorous 1930’s Broadway
Richard Linklater become one of the undisputed heroes of the indie circuit with his award winning youth based films shot on ultra low budgets (“Slacker,” “Fast Food Nation,” Oscar nominated “Before Sunset”). In this film he has stayed with the tried and true formula of viewing the world through young eyes but has strayed far away from the conventional indie formula with a 1930’s setting rich with costumery and set design. The end result is a fun film that harkens back to the Neil Simon coming-of-age trips down memory lane.
The film is based on the novel by Robert Kaplow about how young Richard Samuels won the chance of a lifetime to be in the hottest place at the hottest time and learned what Broadway was all about.
Emerging actor Zac Efron (“Hairspray”) plays 17 year old Samuels in the roaring era of 1937 New York City. The Nazis are far away, WWII is just a speculation and the Broadway theatre scene is dancing on the grave of prohibition. Richard is forced to study Shakespeare in school but what he wants to do is live Shakespeare on the stage. Hanging out on 41st Street he runs head-on into one the brightest of the new stars in the Theatre District, Orson Welles. Welles’ revolutionary modernization of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” is opening in one week at his new Mercury Theatre and the stakes are high for Welles. Young Richard lucks his way into a minor role with the bluff and bluster that will come to signify the Great White Way.
Newcomer Christian McKay has the lead role of Orson Welles in the film, a character that is as much defined by the villainy of the iconic radio and film genius as by his achievements. Mckay does a great job, he belts out his lines like a Shakespearean actor and comes as close to Welles as Welles was willing to come to himself. McKay bagged a nomination for Most Promising Newcomer at the British Independent Film Awards for his leading role in this film and the nod is well deserved.
The love interest in the film has nothing to do with Welles, indeed he is depicted as a man so obsessed with his work so as to be incapable of love. The romance is between the striking beautiful Claire Danes (“The Hours” and "My So-Called Life" on TV) who plays office assistant Sonja Jones. It is a credit to Linklater that Efron and Danes develop a marvelous screen chemistry that becomes as beautiful as it is nostalgic. By the way, there is considerable nostalgia in this film---if you don’t have a touch of yearning for the good old days, you might just as well give the movie a miss.
Amongst the great supporting actors it is hard to know where to start; they all do their jobs so well. The stand-out is Eddie Marsan, winner of two British Independent Film Awards for Best Supporting actor for his work as the devilishly freaked out driving instructor in “Happy-Go-Lucky” and for the angry and confused Reg in the political pot-boiler “Vera Drake.” He plays producer John Houseman with style and aptly reproduces the love-hate relationship that exists between most directors and producers and probably existed between Houseman and Welles as well. It is Marsan’s panicky businessman pleas to Welles that creates much of the tension in the film. Both men had their fortunes and their careers at stake in a risky production.
Zoe Kazan and James Tupper provide stand-out supporting work as well, with Kazan playing the girl next door who eventually shows the true heart of the city.
Production designer Laurence Dorman, costume designer Nic Ede and hair and make-up designer Fae Hammond also deserve a substantial share of the credit for pulling this light-weight drama off successfully. They are the people who take the film viewers out of the London shooting locations and place them squarely on the feverish streets and inside the peeling walls of the inwardly squalid and outwardly glamorous stage scene. The interior building shots in the museums, apartments and the dirty and faded back-stage areas of new York are shown is fascinating realism.
Directed by: Richard Linklater
Starring: Zac Efron, Christian McKay and Claire Danes
Release: November 25, 2009
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