Blue Moon Movie Review (SFF) –
Much of Richard Linklater’s filmography has been characterized by one phrase – “hangout”. Many of his films feature the audience merely spending time hanging out with characters and groups as they go about their lives. From accompanying star-crossed lovers in Before Sunrise, to chilling with a team of college baseball players in Everybody Wants Some!!, Linklater’s films often place us alongside their characters.
” Linklater’s most self-contained “
Blue Moon is a truly unique Richard Linklater “hang-out” movie which has us spending an evening with the diminutive in stature yet larger than life in personality Lorenz “Larry” Hart on the eve of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s smash opening of new Broadway musical hit Oklahoma! With his former creative partner Rodgers about to surpass him, Hart – full of unbridled ego and personality can’t help but try and make the evening about himself through subtle ways as he strikes up conversations with the staff and other clients about his young muse Elizabeth and his personal disdain for the new hit musical. But as the celebration mounts, it becomes clear that maybe this may be Hart’s finale.
In the heart of New York’s Theater District, sits Sardi’s, a bar that has been the toast of Broadway for 100 years and known for its caricatures of movie stars that line the walls of the institution. It’s here that Ethan Hawke brilliantly plays the longing pining lovelorn Lorenz even in his most pitiful moments as he regales his previous accomplishments and teases his fellow bar patrons. The film opens with two contrasting quotes: “Hart was alert and dynamic and fun to be around” Oscar Hammerstein II compared to “he was the saddest man I ever knew.” Mabel Mercer. And from its earliest lines of dialogue we see the tension inside the struggling alcoholic artist as patrons enter his orbit and provide further spark to his evening as he lyrically toys with them in playful verse.
Bar owner Eddie (Bobby Cannavale) does what he can to keep Larry from immediately drinking, whilst he strikes up conversation with the young pianist across the room whom he nicknames Knuckles (Jonah Lees), and noted essayist (and future author of Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web) E.B. White, played with warm intelligence by Patrick Kennedy seated in the corner. As he revolves around the room cheekily bantering with each of them, he begins to paint a picture of his young muse, Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley), a 20 year old Harvard College student whom the 47-year old lyricist has fallen deeply in love with.
But just as he can finish retelling his sordid love affair, the after party for the opening night of Oklahoma! merrily rolls into the establishment and leads to some loving albeit tense reunions between Hart and Rodgers. Andrew Scott is marvellous as the grounded Richard Rodgers, who clearly admires the great talent of Hart but has become lethargic for his manic tendencies and misanthropic musings. Rodgers likes sentimentality and heart, whilst Hart wants to satirise everything and take nothing seriously. It’s clear that Hart’s string of unrequited loves have soured him to the possibility of true romance, whilst the married Rodgers sees the guy getting the girl as a very realistic and relatable tale.
Hart’s further interactions with his incomparable Elizabeth played with dazzling spunk by Margaret Qualley further lead to heartache as she reveals she loves him “just not in that way”, admiring his mentorship and valuing his friendship but having no desire to pursue a romance, partially due to Lorenz’s presumed homosexual leanings. Screenwriter Robert Kaplow based much of the film’s screenplay upon the letters exchanged between Hart and Weiland, which gives the film a rich emotional depth, especially to their relationship, and allows Hart’s dialogue in particular to sing poetically with every word uttered.
As a single location film, and so deeply rooted in the musical theatre and literary scene of 1940s New York, Blue Moon often feels like a filmed play, with its dialogue heavy quick wit. But it never becomes too yappy, instead establishing itself as a masterful chamber piece that allows ample room for the screenplay to breathe and its characters to inhabit the warmly lit evening establishment.
Blue Moon is one of Linklater’s most self-contained yet richly crafted works that examines not only the singular life of one iconic lyricist who penned hits like “My Funny Valentine”, “Blue Moon” & “The Lady is a Tramp”, but that speaks into the hearts of all those who long to know others and be known in return with a career-best performance from Ethan Hawke and a rich understanding of American theatre, especially at a crucial hinge point in the history of Broadway.
Blue Moon is playing at the Sydney Film Festival 2025
