Guild Hall is launching its new Feel Good Films series with Wes Anderson’s “Rushmore,” a coming-of-age comedy with an all-star cast, on Friday at 7 p.m. Co-written by Anderson and Owen Wilson, the film is about an eccentric 15-year-old, Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman); his friendship with a rich industrialist, played by Bill Murray, and their shared affection for Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams), an elementary school teacher.
In a review for The Guardian, Andrew Pulver said, “All in all, ‘Rushmore’ is a genre-defying marvel, switching between outrageous humor and genuine pathos at a moment’s notice . . . Anderson is assisted by outstanding performances from Schwartzman and Murray — the former, a scion of the Coppola dynasty, summoning up a manic charm in his first film role, and the latter crafting one of the sublime grotesques that have become something of his specialty.”
The film also stars Seymour Cassel, Brian Cox, and Luke Wilson. Tickets are $18.
Also coming to Guild Hall in its National Theatre Live series is “The Audience,” a play by Peter Morgan, directed by Stephen Daldry, and starring Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II, on Saturday at 7 p.m.
The play is centered on the weekly audiences between the queen and her prime ministers following her accession in 1952. Among them are Winston Churchill, Harold Wilson, Anthony Eden, David Cameron, Tony Blair, and the indomitable Margaret Thatcher.
The original West End production, which was filmed in 2013 at the Gielgud Theatre, earned five Olivier nominations, winning best actress for Mirren and best actor in a supporting role for Richard McCabe, who played Wilson. When the play moved to Broadway, Mirren and McCabe repeated their laurels with Tony Awards and Outer Critics Circle Awards.
Of Mirren’s performance, Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote, “This is an admirably centered and engaged performance that gives shadow as well as substance to her physically exact portrayal of Elizabeth through the ages . . . it’s amazing how much she conveys with the dimming or brightening of the eyes, the set of the mouth, the slightest furrow of the brow.”
Tickets are $25.
In a shift from film to visual art, Guild Hall will host a conversation between Jason Bard Yarmosky, whose work is on view there through April 19, and Ross Bleckner, who will have a solo show there in August. Moderated by Melanie Crader, the museum director and curator of visual arts, the talk will happen next Thursday at 7 p.m.
Yarmosky’s current exhibition, “Time Has Many Faces,” reflects his engagement with themes of aging, time, and memory and includes 10 large portraits, six of them of his grandparents. The conversation will explore the evolution and history of his practice, and Bleckner, one of the most influential painters of his generation, will reflect on Yarmosky’s work and the broader trajectory of contemporary painting.
Tickets are $35.
