Friday, 12 October 2012

DVD review: Me and Orson Wells


A teenager works with Orson Wells.

That’s a strange beast of a movie. Certainly interesting but in end vaguely unsatisfactory.
This is supposed to be one of those “coming of age” stories. Our “hero” doesn’t know what to do with his life but then get this incredible occasion, to work with Orson Wells, and so he becomes a man.
Here is the main problem. He becomes a man by being a moron and an all round stupid person. This, in Hollywood jargon, becomes building character but for all the people who would have killed to get a chance like the one he had its all very annoying.
He doesn’t really have a proper character arc. He goes around, he watches all the theater stuff going on, he likes the girls. The fact that he is played by the one and only Zac Efron doesn’t help. It’s not like he does a bad job, just that you need more than a pretty face to elevate the material.
Luckily for the movie Orson Wells fanatic in his first movie appearance Christian McKay is perfect as the great director. He does more than good acting, he brings Wells to life.
The period setting, the theatre setting in particular, is fascinating. Watching the making of the play, a very famous and influential one is extremely interesting. It all shows, in perfect details, how would it be to work alongside a person who can be at the same time incredibly brilliant but also terribly egocentric as Wells was.
Conclusion: A doughnut shaped movie with an hollow core but very rich stuff all over the place. 

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