Me and Orson Welles

Long before he played Charles Foster Kane, Orson Welles blazed like a sun in the theater world, and like a sun, he exerted enormous gravity on those around him and often burned those who got too close. This enjoyable light entertainment captures Welles ascendant, preparing for his 1937 production of Julius Caesar. And like Welles himself, the actor playing him (McKay) makes it hard to notice there is anyone else around.

Efron plays Richard, a New York high-school kid enamored of the theater who cons his way into being cast as a last-minute replacement a week before opening (the sole requirement is that he can play the ukulele; he bluffs). And he gets a hard, fast education in theater and life. He woos the company’s resident unavailable hottie Sonja (Danes) and gets his heart broken when he learns that she’s not going to throw over her career ambitions for a callow lad with adorable eyes. Ah, life upon the wicked stage! Linklater delivers the story with clear-eyed efficiency, and the period details are lovingly precise, but the film feels a bit under-cooked.

Danes is perfectly satisfactory, and many of the actors in secondary roles are quite good, but Efron isn’t given much to work with beyond fresh-faced up-and-at-’em spirit, and he’s not a mature enough actor to find anything in the material. But McKay! He doesn’t just get the distinctive Welles cadence; he owns this film, striding through scenes as if he’s the lord of all he surveys. He is.

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