Here's what Richard Linklater's 20-year production schedule for Merrily We Roll Along looks like
Aux Features Film
It’s easy to be skeptical of Richard Linklater’s announced adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, which he plans to film with stars Ben Platt and Beanie Feldstein over the next 20 years. That would allow the characters to truly age—or de-age, as the musical’s story unfolds in reverse—to help convey the story’s themes about the passage of time and the impact of a life lived. It’s a great idea, but, like, it’s hard to get your best pals together for dinner once a month. The concept of continually corralling some of Hollywood’s most in-demand talent on such a consistent basis—especially on a planet teetering on the edge of disaster—is a big ask. But, in a new interview with Indiewire, Platt, currently starring in Netflix’s The Politician, sounds optimistic.
“It’s too brilliant of a solution not give it a try,” he said. “Obviously it’s a lot to bite off and we’re all kinda taking a leap of faith, in that a million different things could happen that could make this not come to fruition, but everyone involved is really passionate enough to give it a try.”
Platt explains Linklater is hewing as close to the timeline of the play, which encompasses 1957 to 1976, as possible. “We did the first sequence this summer, and the idea is to follow the schematic of the show literally, in the sense that if there’s a scene that takes place in ‘57 and one in ‘61, we’ll wait four years and shoot the next one,” said Platt. “So we’re corresponding with the map of the show. Other than that, it’s sort of like—‘let’s get together and make a short film’—and then disperse, and do that nine times.”
Platt, calling the project “a brilliant marriage of that concept with this material,” says that what those not immersed in the musical world might not understand is that the approach “solves the age-old issues the piece has always had.” Merrily We Roll Along, after all, was considered a flop in 1981 after its Broadway run closed after only 16 performances.
Platt continues, “This is a piece of Sondheim’s that has always had such incredible components, and so many things in it that are is really special. There are moments in the score and conceptually, this whole idea of friendship and people becoming jaded over time, there’s always been so many brilliant pieces, but it’s never quite entirely clicked. It really has this opportunity to transcend—if it all comes together—to watch these people age backwards and get back to their naive ideological selves.”
That’s a good sell, and one we’re excited to watch with eyeballs that will, by the time it’s released in 2039, be replaced with iPhone cameras.
22 Comments
He better release the salary figures for everyone involved in the film now just to be safe…
It’s not like this is something completely new for Linklater. It’s just eight years longer.
Which is why this is so annoying. He did this experiment, the result was a film that some people liked (I wasn’t one of them) but five years later really hasn’t had any lasting impact.
Inspiring a post-Season 12 episode of The Simpsons is not something to be proud of.
I thought most of Boyhood was fantastic and watching the characters age did add a sense of nostalgia for my own childhood. And more than “some people liked” it, it got tons of critical acclaim when it came out. The reason the film isn’t more memorable overall IMO is because there wasn’t really a story, just thematically connected moments. And to a lesser degree because the lead actor just wasn’t up to the task of carrying the movie as he grew older. Both of those issues could be solved by adapting a story and casting two adult actors who are already known to be good performers. That being said, a twenty-year filming cycle is ridiculous and not something I can even pretend to be excited about now. It’s hard enough waiting two to three years for films, who even knows if I’ll be alive in twenty.
It can be a problem when writers and directors aim for ve`rite`. We get to see how undramatic our existences really are.
And how, pray tell, do you measure “lasting impact?” Did you expect the film to launch a franchise? Sell merchandise? Become the next hot IP? Fact is, it’s one of the most acclaimed films of the entire decade, and an opus in the crown of one of today’s leading American auteurs. That’s plenty impact.
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I don’t like being negative. But this seems like a stupid thing to do.
It’ll only work if the script is compelling enough to make the changes in the actors meaningful.It feels like he’s trying to give weight to what already exists by use of convincing ageing as opposed to relying solely on the text itself and good makeup and costuming. I don’t know if that story is worth all this trouble to an audience. And, ultimately, despite him wanting to do this experiment, it’s about the audience. Because if the film gets dismissed as a one-trick pony like “Boyhood” seemed to be, then what’s the point in the end?
Boyhood got six Oscar nominations, including one win, and a RoI of over 1000%.Also, having rewatched it last week…it holds up incredibly well.I’m pretty sure they’ll be thrilled if it gets “dismissed” to the same extent that Boyhood did.
Still, as a massive fan of anything Sondheim, I don’t think Merrily We Roll Along would benefit from that at all, especially because the actors looking the same is kind of the whole point.It feels like Linklater just called someone and asked them to find him any famous work that encompasses a long-ish period of time and picked the one he found most interesting. It reads like experimentation for the sake of it rather than something that would actually enhance the experience. Boyhood worked because it was a very concise experience, we were just supposed to acquaint ourselves to this family and watch them grow and change in “real” time. While I respect Linklater’s obstinate passion for the passage of time and displaying its effects on film, this is in equal parts not that new for him (the Before trilogy takes place within a space of eighteen years) *and* dangerous ground for him to tread. His strength seems to lie squarely on humanist, extremely sparse stories where he allows the cast to essentially live their lives in front of the camera, and whenever he tackles something slightly more convoluted or plot-heavy he stumbles (like Fast Food Nation and 2019’s Where’d You Go Bernadette).Merrily We Roll Along has had dozens of productions and even within its more appropriate format I’d say it’s only come close to being done well a couple of times. And while I completely understand why he chose this play to adapt (the concept is basically his wet dream, but the development is far from it), I wish he would spend his time doing original works that are more his speed.
His strength seems to lie squarely on humanist, extremely sparse stories where he allows the cast to essentially live their lives in front of the cameraI know this describes something like Slacker fairly well and maybe some of his others, but stuff like the Before trilogy is meticulously written and constructed – his strength is making it seem like it’s not.That’s maybe why his adaptations seem to generally be less artistically successful than his original concepts. Although the one music-heavy movie he’s done, School Of Rock, was something he had no writing credit on and that was good.
nvm
i look forward to 20 years of pithy articles about this.
Always and forever on board with Linklater.
Due respect to Platt, the backwards-framing isn’t the problem with the piece; that’s just a crutch. The problem is the main character. As James Lapine(as well as many others who’ve tried to tackle it) said, “It’s…the cipher in the middle. You have a Franklin Shepard, and he is mostly defined by the characters around him. That’s difficult. And he is a hard character to like.”
Mamet says characters don’t have to be likeable as long as they’re interesting. Then again, he casts Rebecca Pidgeon in his movies, so…?
I would argue that an interesting character is inherently likeable. I think a lot of people confuse likeable with sympathetic.
There are plenty of love-to-hate characters that you don’t like but are interested in.
David Mamet doesn’t (didn’t?) write musicals. Shepard isn’t really an antihero like Pal Joey or Finch in H2$, and the fact that he’s not well-defined is even more crucial.
Sounds like someone figured out a way he could stretch a 100 days of principal photographer into a 20 year job.
Saw this headline at a glance and thought it might be from The Onion.I wonder if Linklater just has a series of projects like this that span years.