Me and Orson Welles
Crit
Hated "Me," loved (while hating) OW. Put another way, there is an excellent movie here about the birth of the Mercury Theater and about its mad mother-father-god and about the mere mortals in that god's thrall. And then there's a soggy, cliché-ridden coming-of-age story that the interesting story revolves around: about the callow boy whipped into a maelstrom of forces beyond his ken, the theater, betrayal, love. I mean, come on: what's the point of Zac Efron being at the center of any story not aimed at 13-year-olds?
The unknowns Christian McKay and James Tupper are convincing as Welles and Jo Cotten, though Eddie Marsan, always terrific in Eddie Marsanish roles, is just far too Eddie Marsan to be a believable John Houseman--when he goes for haughty indignity, he rises only as far as petulance.
Another splendid performance by Claire Danes, who, would you believe, turned 30 this year and actually has if not lines at least creases in her face that finally prove she's no longer a teenager? In fact, her perpetual teen status beautifully offsets her role here as the sharkishly ambitious faux-ingenue who devours the genuinely ingenuous Efron character. It is really time for her to get an honest-to-god movie-carrying, larger-than-life role.
Oh, one more thing: wonderful soundtrack, and a generally fine job of putting us in 1937.
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