Blue Moon, from acclaimed director Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise trilogy, Boyhood), is a bittersweet portrait of Lorenz Hart at the very moment when history moves on without him.
Rather than attempting a sweeping biographical epic, Linklater zoom in on a single night in 1943, the opening night of legendary Rogers and Hammerstein Broadway musical Oklahoma!, to explore the emotional fallout of one of Broadway’s most famous creative ruptures. The result is an intimate chamber drama prickling with wit, longing and melancholy.
Ethan Hawke delivers one of his most nuanced performances in years. He offers Hart as a man of prodigious talent trapped inside a shrinking world: outwardly flamboyant and quick-witted, inwardly fragile, newly sober and terrified that his best work is already behind him.
Hawke leans into Hart’s contradictions, the swagger that masks loneliness, the cynicism that hides desperation for recognition, the performative flourishes that barely cover a deep sense of failure. The visual trickery used to emphasize Hart’s physical smallness could have reasiuly turned into something gimmicky and facile, yet Hawke plays it with enough emotional grounding that it becomes a genuine metaphor for the character’s internal state.
The film’s central location creates a pressure-cooker atmosphere. As Hart waits for the Oklahoma! company to arrive for their celebration, he banters and gossipa with the sympathetic bartender (Bobby Cannavale) and the weary piano player, both of whom understand more about Hart’s downward spiral than he’d like to admit. Their exchanges carry the rhythm of a three-person play, alternately lively and suffocating. The bar becomes the stage for Hart’s self-mythologising, his confessions and later his frantic attempt to reconnect with his old writing pal Richard Rogers (palyed to perfection by Andrew Scott).
While the film dabbles in Hart’s ambiguous sexuality, it does so with sensitivity rather than polemy. His flirtations underscore his confusion and longing, especially when it comes to Elizabeth Weiland – the story of the film was based on letters exchanged between the young art student and the legendary songwiter. Margaret Qualley portrays Elizabeth with bright charm and just enough emotional distance to make their dynamic both endearing and anomalic.
The film’s depiction of Hart’s relationship with Richard Rodgers is one of its most quietly devastating threads. Scott plays Rodgers with understated elegance, revealing a man who feels guilt but not quite enough to bridge the gulf that now exists between the two former friends. Rodgers offers Hart professional scraps in an attempt to seem like the bigger person, but the gesture only deepens the wound.
Ultimately, this is a moving tribute to a brilliant lyricist confronting the twilight of his career. With Hawke’s exceptional performance at its center, the film earns its place as a poignant, quietly powerful character study.
