Metacritic reviews

Original Cast Album: Company would be worth viewing solely for Sondheim's witty lyrics and infectious music, but the human drama makes the session especially riveting.

Pennebaker captures Sondheim’s eccentric perfectionism with a lovingly amused gaze, offering a rare glimpse of the notoriously private musical theater legend.

Pennebaker films Stritch’s first rendition, among the most celebrated outtakes in history, with a rapt devotion that’s as revealing of the limits of recording as it is of the thrills of live performance—and of the camera’s mediating creative power.

What makes the documentary so compelling is that it captures the process of re-creating a performance that’s meant to be experienced live.

Pennebaker's film, running just under an hour, is revelatory in getting under the skin of the main players. And the director's opening revelation will exasperate musical-theatre nerds as we hear that this was the pilot for a whole series on original cast recordings that never got made. [15 Sep 2021]

Keeping in mind that he was well aware of the presence of the camera—as was everyone during the cast recording session for the Broadway hit Company—lyricist-composer Stephen Sondheim comes off as the kindest, gentlest genius you can imagine in Original Cast Album: Company.

Throughout, Pennebaker’s camera moves in as close as it can to capture every moment of doubt, disappointment and rage in Stritch’s face. That even still viewers debate whether Stritch was playing up the drama of the moment for the cameras only underlines how deftly Pennebaker’s brief and unassuming film resides at the heart of the interplay between work, art, and performance.

Obviously filmed on a budget, production values leave much to be desired, but the power of the performances and the claustrophobic yet exciting atmosphere caught by the film more than make up for that.