Toronto. Me and Orson Welles.

Reaction to Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles is all over the map, so let's start with the positives, then dip - before coming back up again.

"The movie is a delight," insists Ben Kenigsberg in Time Out Chicago, "a thoroughly entertaining slice of historical fiction about a 17-year-old (Zac Efron) selected to play Lucius in [Orson] Welles's Mercury Theater production of Julius Caesar.... The backstage intrigue finds a balance between celebrating the triumphs of ensemble work and depicting what it's like to take a back seat to a genius; the film has the idealism of most coming-of-age films, but cut with a bracing dose of cynicism, particularly when it comes the life lessons the main character learns from the Mercury's resident object-of-desire."

"Is there anything Linklater can't do?" asks Matt Riviera. "The versatile filmmaker's new comedy is a thoroughly entertaining ensemble piece full of effortless insights into theater, fame and ambition. Unfolding at a brisk pace in lovingly recreated 1930s Broadway, the film features a superb central performance by Christian McKay as Orson Welles. Claire Danes, Eddie Marsan, Ben Chaplin and James Tupper round out the terrific cast as the great director's famous collaborators. Branagh couldn't have done it better."

"Having always thought fondly of Richard Linklater's underseen and underrated 1920s bank-heist comedy The Newton Boys, I've been eager to see the versatile, Austin-based director take another stab at directing a period film," blogs Scott Foundas. "Unfortunately, after catching up with Linklater's Me and Orson Welles here in Toronto, I wish he hadn't."

"Had Linklater tossed out the 'Me' part and zeroed in on Welles and his creative process, he might have been onto something," writes the AV Club's Scott Tobias. "As is, there's only glancing suggestions as to what made this Caesar so special, and a giant hole at the movie's center."

The Boston Globe's Ty Burr finds it "a good film that could have been great, stiff in the places it should have soared. Worth a look when it comes out, though, especially if you're a fan of the time and place."

"Wow," raves Joshua Rothkopf in Time Out New York. Not so much for the film, but for McKay's performance, "shouting, gesticulating like a Shakespearean natural and supplying such basso profundo assholedom."

Jeffrey Wells agrees; and he's got a clip, too.

Blake Ethridge has pix and production notes.

Posted by dwhudson at September 17, 2008 12:51 AM