Richard Linklater is currently filming his own version of Merrily We Roll Along with Paul Mescal, Ben Platt, and Beanie Feldstein. He’s doing it à la Boyhood, in piecemeal fashion over a long period of time so that the actors age along with their characters. It should be out in 2040 or thereabouts, and I fully intend to be there.
However, if you can’t wait that long (and who could blame you?), you can go out this week to the concert film version of the late Stephen Sondheim’s musical. This film captures the Broadway production from 2023, which won Tony Awards for its male leads and for Best Revival, and which makes a forceful case that the show is a vital and rewarding piece of musical theater.
Maybe you recall Lady Bird, where the priest tried to put this show on with a bunch of high-school kids, and no wonder they didn’t get it. If you’re unfamiliar with the show, it tells its scenes in reverse order, so that it begins in 1976 with Broadway songwriter Franklin Shepard (Jonathan Groff) in Hollywood celebrating the successful opening of the film version of his show, at the expense of permanently alienating his longtime friend Mary (Lindsay Mendez) and his former songwriting partner Charley (Daniel Radcliffe). It ends in 1957 with the three of them meeting at college in New York and vowing to be BFFs, so we see the characters going from bitter and middle-aged to young and hopeful.
The original show was a flop. It premiered in 1981, when Broadway audiences wanted to hear Annie sing that the sun’ll come out tomorrow instead of this complicated and rather sour tale of idealistic ambitions thwarted by material success. The years have been good to Merrily We Roll Along, with its adult themes and some of Sondheim’s greatest songs. It’s rather uncannily like Wicked: For Good in that its characters keep wishing that things were like they used to be, to the point that when I saw the musical about Oz, I half expected Glinda to burst into “Like It Was.”
(Fun fact: Mendez played Elphaba in a Broadway production of Wicked opposite co-star Katie Rose Clarke’s Glinda, so there’s even more commonality between the two musicals.)
The revival betters the original version of the show by taking the titanic “Not a Day Goes By” away from Frank and having it sung by Beth (Clarke), the devoted ex-wife whom Frank ditches in favor of a glamorous Broadway star (Krystal Joy Brown). The lion’s share of the show’s good reviews went to Groff, and he is quite good here as a man who gradually sells out his ideals, his friends, his family, and his music to chase wealth and fame.
Through the camera’s viewpoint, though, I’m more impressed by Radcliffe and his ability to stop the show just by sitting still, whether he’s doing the comedy song “Franklin Shepard Inc.” or quietly performing “Good Thing Going” for a Manhattan cocktail party. Reg Rogers makes a tragic impression, too, as the Broadway producer who bankrolls Frank only to watch him steal away his wife. Stage performances translated to film can easily be overwhelming in a bad way on the big screen, but the ones here aren’t too much.
Maria Friedman directed both the Broadway show and this film version, and she’s savvy enough to know that what worked on stage won’t necessarily translate to the big screen. Without breaking the integrity of the audience’s view of the stage, she judiciously uses close-ups to direct our attention, as during the prologue when she zooms in on Frank’s face while the chorus members dance around him. She does something similar to powerful effect in a scene at a courthouse when Frank loses custody of his son and collapses while the people around him variously advise him to either take a vacation or re-focus on his work. Keeping the camera at distance during the ensemble number “It’s a Hit!” is the right move as well. This is one filmed Broadway production that feels dynamic rather than like a museum piece, and that makes Merrily We Roll Along the concert movie of the year.
Merrily We Roll Along
Starring Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez, and Daniel Radcliffe. Directed by Maria Friedman. Written by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth, based on George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s play. Rated PG-13.
