IFDB Review: Orson Welles and I:

Writing a review of this based solely on the fan-edit. I have not seen "Me & Orson Welles" so I have nothing to compare "Orson Welles & I" against: The opening newsreel stuff feels interminable. Seven minutes? This may be "world building" but I would think that there has to be a better way to go about it. I desperately wanted to fast forward during this part but was afraid that there would be things in the newsreel that would come back later. The voice-over(s) do not sound authentic to me at all. The audio quality is too good for the picture quality that goes with them. I'm sure we're to recall the opening of Kane with the screening room scene that follows but I'm not sure why the V.O. about Caesar is laid over it. Are the lips supposed to be synched with V.O.? Once we get past the opening, things go very smoothly. Though Zac Efron is ostensibly our foil, he's very much a cypher, kind of like the reporter from Kane, though much more visible. I found myself not caring about his home life by any stretch nor about the girl from the music shop he kept running into. If this movie could be made without him altogether I would not weep. Christian McKay plays a good Welles. I was thrown off at first by his mania and that "we're all so wacky because we're theater people" vibe through the first third of the film. Luckily, that calms down a bit as we see a little more of Welles's humanity. I didn't notice anything missing from the film -- it all played smoothly and felt very natural. If I could make one suggestion it would be to remove the prologue completely. Kudos to the editor.

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