Me and Orson Welles belongs to that in the shadow of great men genre of historical fiction, an imagining of the ordinary person meeting the extraordinary figure and finding a new course in life through the encounter. This may have worked in Robert Kaplow's novel, but in Richard Linklater's film, the "me" (even embodied by the personable Zac Efron) is completely engulfed by the larger-than-life Welles, whose flame just grows brighter as he makes his relentless upward ascent, discarding the charred remains of acolytes along the way.

Christian McKay's Welles incorporates both the genius and the huckster, and he makes clear how the two are inextricably linked. The 1966 Maysles brothers short, Orson Welles in Spain, finds the filmmaker enthusing in rapturous detail about a bullfighting movie that never made it to celluloid, and Linklater envisions exactly the same drive and artistry three decades earlier at the Mercury Theater. The difference between Welles on his fiery ascent and long decline is that success would come only when the general could marshal his troupe.

The young Welles was burning his bridges as soon as he could build them, but it hardly seemed to matter when there were so many talented people anxious to commit themselves to the rigors of his artistic vision. In 1937, he was already accustomed to the world accommodating his needs; Welles was using an ambulance to cut through Manhattan traffic so he could perform in live radio broadcasts (he was the instantly recognizable voice of The Shadow) and stage a modern dress version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar at the fledgling Mercury.

What Linklater captures so well is not just the rapacious appetite of Welles, but also the needs of those who clung to him to further their own desires. That's certainly true of Richard Samuels (Efron), a New Jersey high school senior who carries a copy of John Gielgud's Hamlet in his plaid jacket alongside a pocketful of ambition. Charming and reckless as only a wide-eyed innocent can be, he's scooped up to play the small but pivotal role of Lucius, who at one point must serenade Welles's Brutus in a scene meant to humanize the brutal turncoat.

The eager to please Richard is too love struck to see that same raw need in Sonja Jones (Claire Danes), ultra-efficient assistant to Welles who has no qualms about hitching her wagon to a star. In a film filled with too many sketchy characters, Sonja is a full-bodied paradox; confident enough to deal with the preening egoists in the cast while soothing the theatrical establishment riled by Welles and his upstarts, yet more than willing to see her career as a kind of courtship, rising in the ranks by ingratiating herself with powerful men on the rise.

As in his previous period film, The Newton Boys (1998), Richard Linklater takes a familiar genre and adds layers without diluting the original story. Me and Orson Welles actually works as a coming of age tale; a young actor's introduction to adult duplicity amid the wonders and insanity of an influential theatrical production. It also plays well as a Depression era comedy of manners, a kind of fast-paced romp of can-do determination. But the film's 400-pound gorilla — the titanic, insufferable, magnetic Welles — dominates everything else.

Unlike other portrayals of Orson Welles, as main course (Liev Schreiber constructing Citizen Kane in RKO 281) or side dish (Angus Macfayden in Cradle Will Rock, about composer Marc Blitzstein, whose music Linklater utilizes), Christian McKay actually makes clear why creative people flocked to him. When he's not flamboyantly avoiding commitment (both personal and professional), Welles displays not only a ferocious intelligence, but the uncanny ability to push convention just enough to be avant-garde while keeping audiences engaged.

This taskmaster employs a rakish charm, taking impish pleasure in donning the fascist gear of rising European powers for Caesar: Death of a Dictator (and pointing out how Hitler and Mussolini rifled through Roman iconography). He revels in knocking seemingly omnipotent figures off their pedestals (like future target, media mogul William Randolph Hearst), but the Welles seen here is all too willing to live with his own tyrannies. A true Machiavellian prince, he demands obedience, and expects love and fear in exchange for all the favors he bestows.

It's a towering performance, one that McKay (like Welles himself) wears casually. The other members of the Mercury Theater Company don't fare as well; particularly co-founder John Houseman, portrayed by a dyspeptic Eddie Marsan as a killjoy authoritarian. And there's so little of Joseph Cotton in James Tupper's slick lothario and weak apologist that it's impossible to imagine him paired with McKay's Welles as a friend betrayed (Citizen Kane) and befuddled (The Third Man) in roles that require the underrated actor's quiet, stubborn strength.

Only Leo Bill's jittery, over-analytical Norman Lloyd comes alive on his own terms. It's Lloyd and the vivacious budding writer Gretta Adler (Zoe Kazan) who enliven Me and Orson Welles, as if screenwriters Holly Gent Palmo and Vince Palmo added ringers to make mundane scenes (theater rehearsals, Richard's Manhattan explorations) really pop. Norman and Gretta seem to have wandered in from a Marx brothers farce by way of a Woody Allen comedy; they're smart, articulate characters fueled by self-doubt and the restless need to express themselves.

While Me and Orson Welles doesn't meet the exacting standards of the master himself, the film contains such a rich portrayal because it views the subject not only head-on, but through the filter of hero worship. As in Julie & Julia, this split perspective can bring together seemingly opposite traits of a familiar personality in unexpected ways. So Orson the bully and Welles the unifier meet during rehearsals for Julius Caesar, and the innovative auteur takes center stage during the opening night performance.

What happens after the enfant terrible has taught his young protégé a master class in getting what you want is another story altogether. Richard Linklater may not be able to make every moment of Me and Orson Welles as riveting as when Christian McKay is in full bellow, but that may be just as well. This Welles blows with the force of a tornado, and he's just as destructive. It may be enough to survive the encounter, clean up after the devastation, and have enough energy left over to rebuild, a little older, wiser, and glad to be alive.

© 2009, Serena Donadoni. All rights reserved.

Director: Richard Linklater | Writers: Holly Gent Palmo and Vince Palmo | Adapted from the novel Me and Orson Welles by Robert Kaplow | Cinematography: Dick Pope | Production Design: Laurence Dorman | Costume Design: Nic Ede | Editing: Sandra Adair | Producers: Richard Linklater, Marc Samuelson, and Ann Carli | Released by Freestyle Releasing | Running time: 113 minutes | Rated PG-13

Cast: Zac Efron (Richard Samuels/Lucius), Christian McKay (Orson Welles/Brutus), Claire Danes (Sonja Jones), Eddie Marsan (John Houseman), Ben Chaplin (George Coulouris/Mark Antony), James Tupper (Joseph Cotton/Publius), Leo Bill (Norman Lloyd/Cinna the Poet), Kelly Reilly (Muriel Brassler/Portia), Al Weaver (Sam Leve), Simon Lee Phillips (Walter Ash), Jo McInnes (Jeannie Rosenthal), Iain McKee (Vakhtangov), Simon Nehan (Joe Holland/Julius Caesar), Patrick Kennedy (Grover Burgess/Ligarius), Megan Maczko (Evelyn Allen/Calpurnia), Travis Oliver (John Hoyt/Decius), Aidan McArdle (Martin Gabel/Cassius), Thomas Arnold (George Duthie/Artemidorus), Daniel Tuite (William Mowry/Flavius), Zoe Kazan (Gretta Adler), Garrick Hagon (Dr. Mewling), Michael Brandon (Les Tremayne), Saskia Reeves (Barbara Luddy), Imogen Poots (Lorelei Lathrop), Emily Allen (Virginia Welles), Jools Holland (Band Leader), and Eddi Reader (Band Singer).