They Have a Good Thing Going

I had the treat of seeing the Merrily We Roll Along revival co-staring Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsey Mendez while it was on Broadway. It was astounding, and remains one of the most profoundly emotional theatrical experiences I’ve had. Naturally, I clutched at the news that the production had been professionally filmed. “We’ll see what happens,” a spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter as Merrily finished its Broadway run. Now something has.

The filmed version of Merrily opened in theaters across the country earlier this month. It continues to be in “select theaters” through 18 December—now is your chance to see it. And it is well worth seeing.

For those who don’t know, Merrily We Roll Along is a Stephen Sondheim flop, a musical that spent less then two months on Broadway (including previews) before closing in November of 1981. But, over the years, it was reworked and reconceived—chiseling away at the flop to exhume the hit within. This revised version finally came to Broadway in 2023 where it was captured on film for posterity.

It follows three friends—Frank Shepherd, Mary Flynn, and Charlie some-funny-little-name (Groff, Mendez, and Radcliffe respectively)—backwards through time, starting with Frank as an extremely successful and extremely unhappy Hollywood producer and ending with him as an innocent dreamer inspiring his friends to change the world. “How did you get to be here?” the chorus asks Frank again and again—and over the course of the show we find out. It is a poignant story of missed opportunities and unrealized what-ifs. The sort of musical to trigger a mid-life crisis. I mean that in a positive sense.

The music is funny, pensive, devastating. It is dense with lyrical cross-references and reprises that take on special meaning in the context of the topsy-turvy timeline.

The cast is equally phenomenal. Mendez beautifully realizes a character whose arc is mostly subtext. Radcliffe gives an utterly convincing portrayal of a man wigging out on live tv (in song, no less!). And the camera loves Jonathan Groff, with good reason. His silences and tears steal the show in the closeups.

And this show is all closeups. In a bizarre editing choice, the project eschews wide shots almost entirely. This is a treat for those who have already seen the show on the stage—you get to see up close what you only saw at a distance before—but, for newcomers, the cinematography can feel a little claustrophobic.

Still, this is a minor complaint. This is a show worth seeing for the music alone, for the acting alone, for the story alone—how much more for all of them together!

The filmed version adds opening and closing credits and some unobtrusive title cards to help you get the setting of each vignette, but nothing too overproduced. You’re essentially seeing the same show that stole my heart back when it ran on Broadway.

If you hurry into theatres, that is. Go see it!