Review of Me and Orson Welles (2008) by Jillian L — 31 Jan 2012

Ok. Overall, this was a cute movie. Zefron did a good job as aspiring actor Richard, and he even sang a bit, and it was nice to hear him sing without campy pop music in the background. Christian McKay was great as Orson, in my opinion the best performance in the movie.

Iâ(TM)m still confused by Claire Danes character. Just not very clear in my opinion. What killed this movie was the fact that it was slow. It was just a bunch of people rehearsing for Caesar, not a coming of age story.

However, what really captivated me was the actual performance of Caesar itself. You only saw about 20 minutes of the showâ(TM)s opening night, and it was awesome. It was set in modern day (in that case, 1937) and took place in a Fascist state instead of Rome.

Brilliant. I honestly would have rather watched that than the backstage drama. Fun fact: That is actually a real adaptation by Orson Welles that ran for a little over 150 performance at The Mercury (the theatre where the movie took place) Anyway, something else I was confused about.

Why did no one mention that they were in a depression? They mentioned a few times that they were a struggling theatre. But come on, the arts really took a hit during that time period, and I would have liked to see how they managed to survive.

So overall, shmeh. But, if youâ(TM)re a theatre lover, however, watch this movie for the sheer fun of seeing some modern theatre history. And youâ(TM)ll get the theatre jokes :).