Me and Orson Welles
By that I mean the transformation from cute teenage heartthrob to serious actor. Something in the way they both look at people even feels the same, although I have no idea why I think so. On a more superficial level, they have a similar hairtone, a similar head shape and the same slightly asymmetric face. They are not the most beautiful men in the world, but the combination of their facial features allow them to look cute with a lovely smile. Absolutely heartthrob material indeed. While Leonardo DiCaprio already prove himself to have become quite a great actor, “Me and Orson Welles” shows that Zac Efron has similar potential. It’s my first time seeing him, and he is doing fairly well as naive boy who is trying to become an actor, heck, even his theatre lines look decent. I think this is most obvious when he is paired with Zoe Kazan who is absolutely terrible at acting. Efron just appears much more confident and calm in his acting.
I am also not much of a fan of Claire Danes. I think she works well for the role of “girl you can’t get”, but she just appears so damn bland? At first, I was okay with her, but the more I had to see her, the more I was wondering whether she can talk without moving her head around so much.
Now, enough comments on relatively unimportant aspects of the film. The place in the spotlight is taken by Orson Welles, and boy what a character he is. I got angry at Welles so fervently in this film that it can only be interpreted as proof of how brilliantly Christian McKay plays him. Maybe geniuses are always this megalomaniac, crazy and unbearable to be with, but this portrayal of Orson Welles is arguably the icing on the cake. He should have played Caesar, not Brutus. I think it has been awhile since I have gotten so angry at a movie, but with respect to the characterization of Orson Welles, I’d say that is quite a compliment.
I was a little less happy with the lines poor Zac Efron had to deliver. Some pieces of dialogue just made me go “How stupid can you be?” Perhaps it is the point of the whole story, but his naivete felt a little bit over the top. Some of the confrontation between Orson Welles and the protagonist were almost off-putting because of that. Furthering that thought, I don’t actually think that the story is very well-written. Sure, it’s supposed to be a coming-of-age-Bildungsroman kind of story but I couldn’t help but feel that it was almost cheap. No need to even mention that every single woman in the movie either whores herself out for success and/or is downright stupid. Claire Danes’s character is probably the worst. Her constant “oh this is just how Orson is, you have to deal with it” is reminiscent of the way Hikaru Genji seduces/rapes women. Infuriating.
All in all, this film started off with an interesting premise especially with the great portrayal of Orson Welles’s intriguing character. I also enjoyed the sparse theater scenes and wished I saw more of it. However, the film was gliding into boredom in its second half and I understand why the film did so badly at the box office. Not recommended.