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. Director Richard Linklater (School of Rock) has crafted a thrilling movie about, of all things, the theater. The time is 1937, the place is New York, and boy wonder Orson Welles (McKay) is rehearsing a modern-dress production of Julius Caesar that will set him on the path to legend. Linklater goes right at the exhilaration of it — you can practically breathe the air of the Mercury Theatre — leaving the grand gestures to Welles. British actor McKay plays the man who would be Citizen Kane in a miraculous act of physical and vocal transformation. Wow. Efron takes a more oblique approach, and it pays off handsomely. His character wins a small role in the play, gets seduced by an ambitious assistant (Claire Danes), and falls under the spell of everything theatrical What makes the movie stick, besides Linklater’s pitch-perfect direction, is the way McKay and Efron handle the betrayal of Richard by Welles. The treachery is sweetly done, of course, but it leaves its mark. Just like the movie. --Rolling Stone
“One of the sweetest and most heartfelt movies ever made about a life in the theater.” Christian Science Monitor
Cast Zac Efron, Claire Danes, Christian McKay, Ben Chaplin, Kelly Reilly, Eddie Marsan, Leo Bill, and Imogen Poots