Merrily We Roll Along is a Broadway musical that has, as part of the plot, that making musicals for Broadway represents love, joy, and purity, and that producing movies—including an adaptation of a past Broadway hit—is a symbol of betrayal and selling out. Naturally, there’s now a movie adaptation of Merrily. Two of them. Then again, one can’t say this particular story hasn’t earned its way to the big screen.
Based on a stage play from the 1930s, the Merrily We Roll Along musical was a work of Stephen Sondheim, with a book by George Furth. It was the story of three idealistic young friends who start out writing Broadway shows together, and slowly grow apart over the years due to greed and jealousy. But the twist was that the story was told in reverse, with the sad older versions of the characters viewed first.
Merrily, when it landed on Broadway in 1981, was a notorious flop, lasting just 16 performances. But it’s been revised and reclaimed over the years as an unappreciated masterpiece, often treated on the level with Sondheim’s more successful shows. It got an acclaimed revival on Broadway in 2023, part of the run of revivals of his work that coincided with Sondheim’s 2021 death and its aftermath.
The new Merrily film, coming out Friday through Fathom Events, is a filmed version of that Broadway production, starring Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez in the three main roles, with Maria Friedman directing. Groff is Frank, the successful sellout, while Radcliffe is Charley, his jealous friend. The play wasn’t shot with a stationary camera, rather with a special process, also used for the filmed version of Hamilton, in which the camera is right up close with the actors, and it feels more like a movie. It’s a great way of shooting theater that I’d love to see more of in the coming years.
The result is a success, with Groff and Radcliffe in particular delivering heartbreaking work, and the songs sounding amazing. It captures the essence of what the show’s about, and the different heartbreaks hit just the way they’re supposed to. The new version isn’t to be confused with a different movie adaptation of Merrily, which Richard Linklater is currently making over the course of 20 years, so the actors (played by Paul Mescal, Ben Platt, and Beanie Feldstein) age the way the characters do. That one is at least 15 years away.
That original stage production was the subject of a great documentary called Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, directed in 2016 by original cast member Lonny Price. Another doc, in 2013’s Six by Sondheim, featuring a look at six of the composer’s musical numbers, including a staging of the Merrily number "Opening Doors” that featured Sondheim himself singing.
Sondheim’s work has traditionally been under-adapted by Hollywood, except for the two West Side Story movies, the lackluster Into the Woods adaptation, and a couple of others; you’ll never convince me that great movies couldn’t be made out of Company, Assassins, or Sunday in the Park with George.