‘Blue Moon’ Review

By Nadia Dalimonte

Ethan Hawke in Blue Moon

​If any creative duo could interpret a 20th-century lyricist’s legacy as a hangout film and a breakup film, it’s Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater. From the achingly romantic Before trilogy and the coming-of-age epic Boyhood, to the surreal Waking Life and claustrophobic Tape, Hawke and Linklater have leapt through time in search of purpose and meaning. They’ve perfected the walk and talk. They’ve captured the highs and lows of long-term relationships, making deeply conversational imprints in cinematic history. They understand the beauty of a good hangout and the heartbreak of a faded connection. When you know what it’s like to be in a thriving relationship, whether it’s romantic or artistic, the thought of losing that connection is haunting. Hawke and Linklater’s own creative partnership makes them the perfect storytellers to find the nostalgia and the heartache in songwriter Lorenz Hart (Hawke), whose creative partner of 25 years, Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott), left him for Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney). Adding salt to the wound, Rodgers and Hammerstein went on to make the Broadway smash hit, Oklahoma!.

Blue Moon, Hawke’s ninth collaboration with Linklater, is a wistful chamber piece about artistic betrayal. Written by Robert Kaplow (who previously penned Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles), the dialogue echoes tragic sounds from an artist who “went directly from childhood to washed up” and is now past his prime. Hart, having just left the Broadway premiere of Oklahoma!, arrives at Sardi’s in New York City for the after-party and beelines to the bar. He complains to the sympathetic bartender, Eddie (Bobby Cannavale), that the show is terribly sentimental. Hart insists it’s not jealousy speaking, but his body language and facial expressions suggest otherwise. Hart’s forthcoming thoughts would go on to reveal deep layers of bitterness and sadness about the fact that Oklahoma! — about to become Rodgers’s greatest success — was accomplished without him.
The film takes liberties to convey a painfully vulnerable period in an artist’s life, where Hart has been defined by a decades-long partnership and must now rediscover himself as a storyteller. His outward personality makes him seem alert, dynamic, and fun to be around for his witty anecdotes and snappy remarks like “Who wants inoffensive art?”. When Hart looks inward, however, he doesn’t like what he sees: a bitter alcoholic and an insecure, self-loathing, diminishing talent who feels useless creatively. Hart’s beloved musical hits like “My Funny Valentine,” “Where or When” (covered notably by Harry Connick Jr. for When Harry Met Sally), and the titular “Blue Moon” have kept his talent immortal to this day. But on March 31, 1943, eight months before Hart’s death, American theatre was changing in real time. And he was getting left behind.

Lorenz Hart is not a typical leading role, which makes the spotlight on him all the more enigmatic. His work is heard and not seen, and he’s a complicated personality to follow. Blue Moon finds a compelling perspective by looking at the character’s downward spiral as a creative eulogy. When Rodgers and Hammerstein walk into the bar, they seem to view him in a translucent light, as though he’s digging his own grave and fading before their eyes. To mask the melancholy, Hart saves face and puts on a happy smile. With one foot still in the door, he tries to sell Rodgers on the idea that they could do something more emotionally complex and unsentimental than Oklahoma!. Their conversation, beautifully acted by Ethan Hawke and Andrew Scott, captures the daunting energy of putting yourself out there, and shows us just how strongly attached Hart’s own artistic identity is to Rodgers’s.

Blue Moon thrives from its dialogue-heavy script and real-time structure thanks to a towering Ethan Hawke, whose own dedication to his craft pours out of this character. Hawke has given us plenty of remarkable performances over the years, but nothing quite as physically and emotionally transformative as Lorenz Hart. Starring in every frame, Hawke moves between refusing to face the changing times and chasing after the ticking clock. He finds a magnificent balance between Hart’s charismatic, self-deprecating, and self-destructive qualities. All the while, he is struggling with his sexuality. He is struggling with his depression, with his alcoholism, with the loud silence of being alone. There’s a powerful through line of heartache and vulnerability in Hawke’s work, which you can feel down to the way he moves through space.

It’s not just the visual trickery that makes Hawke look smaller than he really is; it’s how Hawke can carry himself, as though he’s whittling away in real time, and the state of musical theatre moves like a rug getting pulled from underneath him. He also commands the screen with hearty soliloquies. Even in moments where the story feels repetitive and indulgent, Hawke creates such an irresistible portrait that you feel drawn to his energy. Even though Hart’s presence at the bar feels so tragically transient, especially given the context that the film takes place so closely before his death, he leaves a reverberating impression.

There’s a special intimacy to this character study that speaks to some of Linklater’s signature strengths: he makes the simplicity of walking and talking feel incredibly cinematic, and he lets the actors truly explore their environments. From the globe-trotting romance of Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight to a bunch of college teammates coming-of-age in Everybody Wants Some!!!, Linklater excels at these stories centred around hangouts. Blue Moon plays out as one long, collaborative conversation and Linklater finds narrative tension in the seesaw rhythms of Kaplow’s script. A single exchange between characters — notably an in-depth conversation between Hart and his muse, Yale student Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley) — can be humorous one minute in an anecdote Elizabeth shares, and tragic the next in Hart’s unrequited love. While Qualley seems a bit out of her depth opposite Hawke, the two still share one of the film’s most impactful scenes here. We get tremendous insight into how Hart navigates through the world, and we’re watching another relationship of his begin to change dramatically in real-time.

Blue Moon maintains a lot of intimacy from taking place mostly in one location. The characters move through Sardi’s like it’s a stage, and they bottle the tension from various small interactions. The tension is palpable when Hart swallows his pride before greeting his longtime creative partner Rodgers’s arrival at the afterparty. Andrew Scott works wonders with short bursts of screen time; he gets under the skin of someone who knows he has just created something major, and every step he takes feels like he’s ascending from Hart. When Hart and Rodgers are huddled in the corner of a staircase, and Hart’s true feelings about Oklahoma! are aired out, Rodgers is always a step higher, while Hart is on a downward spiral. It’s a neat moment that makes excellent use of the location.

While it’s quite premature to consider Blue Moon a deep cut in Hawke and Linklater’s careers, there’s something about this film that feels headed in that direction. There’s a level of lore, and layers of references, that feel out of reach as someone who doesn’t have extensive musical theatre knowledge. But as a testament to how Hawke and Linklater have approached Hart’s character, Blue Moon strikes a universal chord. It’s not at all contingent on what theatre knowledge someone may or may not have. It’s a thoughtful depiction of lost friendship, loneliness, and a long-gone artist whose work so vividly lives on. Since seeing this film, I haven’t been able to get the titular song out of my head. Much like that beautiful melody, echoing through time, Blue Moon carries a special timelessness. And a very long time from now, when we look back on all the cinematic beauty Hawke and Linklater have found in reflections of real life, perhaps Blue Moon will stand out as the deepest cut of their collaborations. It’s the most vulnerable love letter to creative partnerships and the eternal joys and sorrows that they can imprint on who we are.