With “Me And Orson Welles,” co-producers and co-writers Holly Gent Palmo and Vince Palmo make their debut by adapting Robert Kaplow’s 2003 novel of the same name for a polished coming-of-age film. The “me” of the title is Richard (Zac Efron), a fictional 17-year-old New Yorker skipping high school classes to play Lucius in Orson Welles’ historic 1937 staging of modern-dress, Fascist-Italy set “Julius Caesar” at Manhattan’s Mercury Theater. In a finer impersonation than Vincent D’Onofrio and Liev Schreiber achieved in earlier films, Christian McKay delivers a stagey yet engaging turn as he impetuous, petulant Welles. The backstage drama of mounting a Shakespeare play with Mussolini allusions, and Richard’s liaison with Welles assistant and paramour Sonja (Claire Danes) make for a credible account of moral compromise for the sake of art. Welles is as much genius as jerk here. He comes off as a charismatic philanderer who swigs pineapple juice and toys with his cast by cooing such sweet nothings as his oft-used line: “You really are a God-created actor.” Director Richard Linklater (“Slacker,” “A Scanner Darkly”) creates an appealing period piece much like his overlooked “Newton Boys,” another history-based take on maverick American careerism. With Zoe Kazan, Eddie Marsan, Kelly Reilly and James Tupper. 113m. (Bill Stamets)
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
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