Review of MAOW from indiemovieonline

Richard Linklater revisits Orson Welles’s theatre company and puts Zac Efron centre stage. It’s a crazy combination says Stieg Ingarsson, but by gawd, it might just work.

If you were making a film set in 1937 about the Mercury Theatre and the great Orson Welles, I somehow doubt that the cheeky teen star of the High School Musical franchise would be top of your list for a central role. But then you’re not Richard Linklater. The man behind such arthouse favourites as Dazed and Confused, A Scanner Darkly, Before Sunrise and School Of Rock (ahem) is back with Me And Orson Welles, and his leading man is non other than Zac Efron himself. Fortunately, and before you all burst blood vessels, our Zac is cast in the role of the ‘Me’ of the title, rather than the fiery giant of stage and screen.

Efron is Richard Samuels, a kid still in school but with big dreams of stardom, who stumbles into a production of Julius Caesar through some nifty snare drum work and an ad jingle. Once in, and with the small part of Lucius his own (a role that mainly involves playing a ukelele disguised as a lute), he is on a rollercoaster of confrontation, romance and theatre, darling, as the Mercury company tries to get the doors open on time.

http://www.indiemoviesonline.com/reviews/me-and-orson-welles-281009