Review: Me and Orson Welles

I am not only a sucker for 1930s comedies, but I also love movies that are set in the 1930s. The dialogue! The costumes! The music! And especially the hats. I love a good hat in a movie, right up there with a well-written script and a lack of treacly sentiment.

Fortunately for me, Me and Orson Welles has a well-written script, no treacle, and lovely Thirties period costumes, including a few sharp hats. The latest film from Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater is set in New York City in 1937, when Orson Welles decided to stage Julius Caesar at the newly dubbed Mercury Theater. Local screenwriters Holly Gent Palmo and Vincent Palmo, Jr. adapted the novel by Robert Kaplow.

The movie enters Welles's world by way of teenager Richard Samuels (Zac Efron), who happens to be in the right place at the right time and is cast in the small role of Lucius, the week before the play is scheduled to open. He falls for the ambitious assistant Sonja (Claire Danes), but he's competing with most of the male Mercury Players, including Joseph Cotton (James Tupper). He also falls under the spell of Welles (Christian McKay), who is determined to have every little thing his way, whether it's easy or impossible. Richard also keeps running into Gretta (Zoe Kazan), who wants to be a writer as much as he wants to be an actor.

Although you might not believe it with Efron starring, this is a good movie for grown-ups who want to watch something frothy and diverting, with a refreshing lack of fart and poop jokes and female leads who act like idiots when they fall in love and mean-spirited humor. I could take my mom to this movie or my film-geek little brother, and both might enjoy it.

The performances are all excellent. McKay in particular manages to be Orson Welles, totally convincingly, without seeming like some kind of mimic. The Mercury Players also seem just right -- Tupper dashing as Cotton, Eddie Marsan alternatively irritated and tolerant as John Houseman, Ben Chaplin fussy as George Coulouris. I was a little disappointed in Sonja, whom I felt needed a little more depth, but Danes did well with the character as written. Efron is appropriately charming without being too obvious about it.

Me and Orson Welles is great fun, but I felt slightly, vaguely dissatisfied afterward. Maybe I wanted more depth of character or a less uncertain resolution, I'm not sure. Maybe I wanted it to be a stunning movie that knocked me over, when it was simply a good one that kept me amused and entertained. The film contains some lovely, sometimes hilarious moments: Welles working a quote from the book The Magnificent Andersons into a radio show, Efron quoting Shakespeare in English class, and The Bad Luck Thing. I also love that Sonja's goal is to work for David O. Selznick, and imagine what she would have to put up with as his assistant.

There will never be anymore of those delightful Thirties comedies that I love, and I know that. But Me and Orson Welles may be as close as we'll get to those light but smart comedies.

Me and Orson Welles opens Friday at Arbor and Alamo South Lamar, and curling up in a cozy theater with the film seems like a fine alternative to hustle-bustle holiday shopping. For more info about the movie, check out Debbie's interview with Linklater and McKay as well as her coverage of the local red carpet with Linklater, McKay and Efron. (And if that's not enough, I've also got an interview for Cinematical, which should be available on Friday.)