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Me and Orson Welles (2008) More at IMDbPro »

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Me and Orson Welles (2008) -- NYC, 1937: A week in the life of aspiring actor Richard Samuels (Efron), where he finds himself cast in Orson Welles' staging of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" and falling for an older woman (Danes).
Me and Orson Welles (2008) -- Trailer for this period comedy from Richard Linklater
Me and Orson Welles (2008) -- Movieplayer.it - Trailer (Flash)
Me and Orson Welles (2008) -- MovieMaze.de - Trailer (Quicktime & Flash)
Me and Orson Welles (2008) -- CineMagia.ro - Trailer (Flash)

Overview

User Rating:
7.3/10   311 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 6% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Richard Linklater
Writers:
Holly Gent Palmo (screenplay)
Robert Kaplow (novel)
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Contact:
View company contact information for Me and Orson Welles on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
4 December 2009 (UK) more
Genre:
Drama more
Tagline:
All's fair in love and theater
Plot:
A teenager is cast in the Mercury Theatre production of "Julius Caesar" directed by a young Orson Welles in 1937. | full synopsis
Plot Keywords:
NewsDesk:
(82 articles)
Premiere Slackery News Tidbits
 (From Slackerwood. 3 November 2009, 8:00 AM, PST)

The Oscar Race Begins on November 6th
 (From FilmExperience. 1 November 2009, 3:54 PM, PST)

User Comments:
Great portrayal of Welles in a charming film more (7 total)

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Ben Chaplin ... George Coulouris

Claire Danes ... Sonja Jones

Zac Efron ... Richard Samuels
Zoe Kazan ... Gretta Adler

Eddie Marsan ... John Houseman
Christian McKay ... Orson Welles

Kelly Reilly ... Muriel Brassler

James Tupper ... Joseph Cotten
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Thomas Arnold ... George Duthie
Leo Bill ... Norman Lloyd
Shane James Bordas ... Elliott Reid

Michael Brandon ... Les Tremayne

Aaron Brown ... Longchamps Kid
Janie Dee ... Mrs. Samuels
Alessandro Giuggioli ... Hiram Sherman

Garrick Hagon ... Dr. Mewling

Patrick Kennedy ... Grover Burgess
Lexie Lambert ... Lizzy
Harry Macqueen ... John A Willard
Megan Maczko ... Evelyn Allen

Aidan McArdle
Michael J. McEvoy ... Epstein
Jo McInnes ... Jeannie Rosenthal
Iain McKee ... Vakhtangov
Simon Nehan ... Joe Holland

Travis Oliver ... John Hoyt
Rhodri Neil Orders ... Stefan Schnabel
Nathan Osgood ... Radio Announcer
Simon Lee Phillips ... Walter Ash
Imogen Poots ... Lorelei Lathrop

Saskia Reeves ... Barbara Luddy
Marlene Sidaway ... Grandmother Samuels
Daniel Tuite ... William Mowry
Al Weaver ... Sam Leve
Robert Wilfort ... Radio Director
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Additional Details

MPAA:
Rated PG-13 for sexual references and smoking.
Runtime:
114 min | Canada:107 min (Toronto International Film Festival)
Country:
UK
Language:
English
Color:
Color
Aspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Dolby Digital
Certification:
Ireland:12A | USA:PG-13 (certificate #44819)
Company:
CinemaNX more

FAQ

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24 out of 35 people found the following comment useful.
Great portrayal of Welles in a charming film, 6 September 2008
Author: death-hilarious from Canada

Considering the fanatic cult following that Richard Linklater has developed with films like Waking Life, Before Sunrise/Sunset, and A Scanner Darkly, let me preface this review by saying that I'm not a Linklater devotee. If Linklater is endowed with a species of genius, I must confess complete ignorance to it. Indeed, my favorite Linklater film was School of Rock, and he has always impressed me more by the breadth of his work and his willingness to challenge the conventions of film than by any individual film. It's perhaps this maverick spirit that drew him to do a film about Orson Welles.

Me and Orson Welles, based on a novel by Robert Kaplow, tells the story of a teenager, Richard Samuels (Zac Efron), who is swept from learning about Shakespeare in the classroom to the fast paced world of the Mercury Theater on Broadway when he lands a role in Orson Welles famous 1937 production of Caesar. As Orson Welles struggles to get the production ready for the premier, Richard falls for the theater's resident hottie, a charming and ambitious aspiring actress played by Claire Daines, and finds himself growing up quickly to the realities of show business and the real world.

The movie is entirely carried by it's acting, and the actor generating the most buzz is the British born Christian McKay who plays Welles. I'm very uneasy about praising portrayals of real life figures, because it seems any time an actor plays any historical figure (from Gandhi to Capote and Idi Amin) they receive excessive attention. I think it has less to do with the "acting" involved than it has to do with the fact that most audiences feel much more comfortable passing judgment (and bestowing praise) on mimicry than actual acting. That said, McKay does a masterful job in capturing that mythical image of a young Orson Welles that all of us film geeks have in our head, from the striking resemblance in appearance to the pitch perfect intonations in his voice. Welles is charming and maddening, endearing and brutal, and always larger than life... and McKay captures it all perfectly. It's clearly a role that McKay has been mastering for a long time, as he was doing a one-man-show about Welles on Broadway before being snatched for the role in Me and Orson Welles. From the Q&A session (at the Toronto international film festival), McKay seemed intelligent and passionate about his work, and I truly hope he doesn't get pigeon-holed into spoofing Welles for his entire career.

Unfortunately the other acting foot that the movie stands on, isn't nearly as good. Zac Efron is just so pretty (and I say this as a heterosexual male) that it becomes distracting. Watching Efron act, it feels like he's trying to make women orgasm in every scene he's in, which works well in enough in the many scenes he's trying to court Claire Daines's character, but doesn't work in any other scene. Efron's acting makes it hard for the audience to emotionally connect and prevents the movie from achieving the emotional punch it might otherwise. The audience is never drawn in and they remain spectators, which, fortunately, isn't such a bad thing since the movie is so fun and nostalgically charming. Perhaps even the flighty and ethereal feeling the film gets because of it's lack of punch can be forgiven, since it's a movie about youth and growing up and so much of that involves tempestuous passions that end up being quite meaningless in retrospect.

8/10

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Message Boards

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Recent Posts (updated daily)User
The titles grammatically incorrect tentonpenguin
going to be weird... revalsaki
I SWEAR to God lona_no_friends
This movie looks... rohit_sidhu
Just Tickling My @$# With A Feather? Lacere
Saw this film last night stevepitt2
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