Who would ever want to be a Broadway Producer? Well, Sonia Freidman does.  But even though she is a multi-award-winner she has her ‘off days’ too.  Like very recently, when she was behind the adaptation of a very successful film The Queen of Versailles, into a Broadway Musical that received merciless bad reviews causing it to close in a matter of weeks without giving Ms Friedman a chance to recover any of her massive costs.

However, in 2023, she took on the task of reviving Sondheim’s musical ‘Merrily We Roll Again’, even though the premiere production, directed by Hal Prince, back in 1981, and hated by the critics, lasted a mere 16 performances.  Friedman’s revival was directed by her Oliver Award-winning actress sister Maria and opened in London’s Chocolate Meiner Factory Theater before being transferred to Broadway in the fall of 2023, starring Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez and directed by Maria Friedman. It won rave reviews and four Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical.   So this time she decided to adapt into a film ….well, actually a live stage recording for the big screen, which in this reviewer’s eyes resulted in over 2 hours of sheer musical joy.

Based on a 1934 Kaufman and Hart play it starts in 1978 in the lavish Bel Air home of uber successful musical songwriter Franklin Shepard (Groff), who has clearly let that success go to his head as he hosts a shallow Hollywood party attended by Mary Flynn (Mendez) but it doesn’t go well — at least as far as she is concerned. All we know at this point is that he is a kind of self-centred prick and she, secretly in love with him for years, is reeling from the decaying of their so-called friendship.

Interestingly, the timeline goes backwards from there as we discover how he has reached this possible peak of his career, which is kind of stalled right now. We are introduced to Shepard’s songwriting partner Charley Krings (Radcliffe) and in a scene-stealing performance that essentially ends forever not just their partnership but also their friendship (and shows what a superb actor Radcliffe is).  As the years continue to drift backwards and this forever friendship is shown in various stages, we meet Franklin’s wife Beth (Katie Rose Clarke) and his young son, his second wife, actress Gussie Carnegie (Krystal Joy Brown), and producer Joe Josephson (Reg Rogers). All weave in and out of his life until the story rewinds all the way back to 1957 and the moment these “old friends” first got together.  And how it all started to go both right and wrong for them.  

For an avid Sondheim fan, it’s tough to remain neutral about how his work is received and respected, especially when it comes to the big screen.  He was responsible for such masterpieces as West Side Story, Gypsy, A Little Night Music, Company, Sweeney Todd, Into The Woods, but he has only ever won one Academy Award!   And even that was Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Sooner or Later” from Dick Tracy   

Sondheim fans (sometimes called “Sondheads,” “Sondheimites,” or “Sondheim Obsessives”) are a passionate community and there may be just enough of them out there to make the movie being released this week the success it deserves to be.