Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
39 Adventures of Power
66 Afterschool
73 Amreeka
49 Antichrist
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
71 Big Fan
65 Black Dynamite
76 Bliss
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
78 Broken Embraces
71 Bronson
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
60 Collapse
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
81 Damned United, The
53 Dare
56 Defamation
67 Departures
70 Earth Days
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
83 Fantastic Mr. Fox
31 Fix
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
xx From Mexico with Love
28 Gentlemen Broncos
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
66 Home
63 Horse Boy, The
74 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
26 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
43 Little Traitor, The
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
46 Love Hurts
84 Maid, The
50 Mammoth
69 Me and Orson Welles
75 Messenger, The
57 Missing Person, The
59 More Than a Game
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
48 New York, I Love You
66 No Impact Man
26 Oh My God
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
79 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
44 Private Lives of Pippa Lee, The
74 Red Cliff
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
65 Skin
41 Splinterheads
42 Staten Island
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
58 Storm
82 Sun, The
49 Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73 That Evening Sun
61 Trucker
49 Turning Green
83 U2 3D
45 Uncertainty
67 Visual Acoustics
32 War on Kids
67 Way We Get By, The
65 Wedding Song, The
xx White on Rice
59 William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74 Woman in Berlin, A
43 Women in Trouble
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Me and Orson Welles

EMAILPRINTFreestyle Releasing

Me and Orson Welles reviews
69
6.0 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 17 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 1 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama

Written by: Holly Gent Palmo
Vincent Palmo Jr.

Directed by: Richard Linklater

Release Date:
Theatrical: November 25, 2009

Running Time: 114 minutes, Color

Origin: Uk

Summary

RATING: PG-13 for sexual references and smoking

Starring Zac Efron, Claire Danes, Christian McKay, Ben Chaplin, Kelly Reilly, Eddie Marsan, Leo Bill, and Imogen Poots

Based in real theatrical history, Me and Orson Welles is a romantic, coming-of-age story about a teenage actor who lucks into a role in "Julius Caesar" as it's being re-imagined by a brilliant, impetuous young director named Orson Welles at his newly-founded Mercury Theater in NYC, 1937. (Freestyle Releasing)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

One of the sweetest and most heartfelt movies ever made about a life in the theater.

Read Full Review >
90

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Art is a fairy tale we choose to believe in, and this movie, a fiction confected about real people, is too good not to be true.

Read Full Review >
80

The New Yorker David Denby

This is a movie of great spirit and considerable charm. It’s about the giddiness of promise--the awakening of young talent, after years of the Depression, to a moment when anything seems possible.

Read Full Review >
75

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Designed primarily for those who are intrigued by theater, curious about Welles, or some combination of both.

Read Full Review >
75

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

What do you say about a movie that proves Zac Efron can act, introduces a master thespian in Christian McKay and launches a charm assault that is damn near irresistible? I say, see it.

Read Full Review >
75

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Me and Orson Welles is, in effect, a sequel to Tim Robbins' star-filled, self-important film about "Cradle," but it's far lighter on its feet.

Read Full Review >
70

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Christian McKay's impersonation of young Orson Welles is sensational in this enjoyable, though slight, historical fiction about a teen who spends a memorable week with the legendary wonder.

Read Full Review >
70

Variety Todd McCarthy

There are moments, especially when Welles is alternating between acting as Brutus and directing everyone else, that it’s possible to forget you’re watching an actor and really believe you’re beholding Orson Welles at work.

Read Full Review >
70

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Deft, affectionate, and unexpectedly enjoyable.

Read Full Review >
70

Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey

McKay, a British stage actor who was doing an off-Broadway production about the movie legend when casting started, and Danes, whose acting always seems so effortlessly good, are the best things about the film.

Read Full Review >
70

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

A sweet, modest snapshot of a long-lost time when a bold kid with a showbiz dream and a little luck could actually get somewhere, and if he could sing and dance to boot, his chances of success would be even greater. Zac Efron fits right into 1937; in 2009, he's a lost boy.

Read Full Review >
67

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Has so little fire that Welles himself would have wondered out loud what he was doing stuck in the middle of it.

Read Full Review >
63

USA Today Claudia Puig

McKay's performance is a revelation. He nails Welles' imperiousness, charm and vocal cadences, and even bears a strong resemblance to the iconic actor/director. He is thoroughly convincing as Welles and electrifies the screen when he's on it.

Read Full Review >
60

Time Out New York Joshua Rothkopf

Maybe this is a good time to mention that the director is Richard Linklater, usually a lot more versatile. Try to imagine a version of Linklater’s "School of Rock" that didn’t pivot on the manic music teacher played by Jack Black but instead, perhaps, on his boring roommate.

Read Full Review >
60

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Surprisingly conventional by director Richard Linklater's standards, this pleasant, low-key dramedy is most memorable for the discovery of co-star Christian McKay.

Read Full Review >
60

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Mr. McKay is in his mid-30s, and doesn't conceal it, so what's the point? By taking the KIND out of WUNERKIND, the movie also removes the WUNDER.

Read Full Review >
50

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Efron has yet to learn that smiling pretty is merely a component of acting, not its entirety. He makes for a supremely passive lead whose chemistry with Danes is nonexistent.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 1 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use