Blue Moon Film Critique: Ethan Hawke's Performance Shines in Richard Linklater's Bitter Broadway Split Story

Parting ways from the more famous collaborator in a performance duo is a hazardous business. Comedian Larry David went through it. So did Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this witty and deeply sorrowful small-scale drama from writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker the director Richard Linklater recounts the all but unbearable tale of musical theater lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his breakup from Richard Rodgers. He is played with campy brilliance, an unspeakable combover and fake smallness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is often technologically minimized in stature – but is also occasionally filmed standing in an unseen pit to stare up wistfully at taller characters, confronting Hart’s vertical challenge as actor José Ferrer previously portrayed the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Elements

Hawke achieves large, cynical chuckles with Hart's humorous takes on the subtle queer themes of the film Casablanca and the excessively cheerful stage show he’s just been to see, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he acidly calls it Okla-queer. The sexual identity of Hart is complicated: this film clearly contrasts his gayness with the straight persona created for him in the 1948 stage show the production Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney playing Lorenz Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of bisexuality from the lyricist's writings to his protege: youthful Yale attendee and budding theater artist the character Elizabeth Weiland, played here with heedless girlishness by Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the legendary New York theater composing duo with the composer Rodgers, Hart was responsible for unparalleled tunes like The Lady Is a Tramp, Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But frustrated by Hart's drinking problem, inconsistency and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers broke with him and partnered with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to write the show Oklahoma! and then a raft of live and cinematic successes.

Emotional Depth

The picture imagines the severely despondent Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s premiere Manhattan spectators in the year 1943, observing with envious despair as the production unfolds, despising its mild sappiness, abhorring the punctuation mark at the end of the title, but dishearteningly conscious of how extremely potent it is. He knows a smash when he watches it – and perceives himself sinking into unsuccessfulness.

Prior to the interval, Lorenz Hart miserably ducks out and heads to the bar at Sardi’s where the balance of the picture unfolds, and anticipates the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! company to show up for their after-party. He is aware it is his showbiz duty to compliment Rodgers, to pretend all is well. With smooth moderation, Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what both are aware is Hart’s humiliation; he provides a consolation to his self-esteem in the appearance of a temporary job composing fresh songs for their existing show the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale portrays the bartender who in standard fashion listens sympathetically to the character's soliloquies of bitter despondency
• Patrick Kennedy plays author EB White, to whom Hart inadvertently provides the notion for his youth literature Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley acts as the character Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale student with whom the movie envisions Lorenz Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in adoration

Lorenz Hart has already been jilted by Richard Rodgers. Undoubtedly the cosmos can’t be so cruel as to have him dumped by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley mercilessly depicts a girl who wants Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can disclose her experiences with guys – as well of course the Broadway power broker who can further her career.

Standout Roles

Hawke shows that Hart partly takes observational satisfaction in hearing about these guys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Weiland and the picture tells us about an aspect rarely touched on in films about the world of musical theatre or the movies: the terrible overlap between career and love defeat. However at one stage, Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has attained will persist. It’s a terrific performance from Ethan Hawke. This could be a theater production – but who shall compose the tunes?

The film Blue Moon was shown at the London cinema festival; it is available on 17 October in the USA, the 14th of November in the Britain and on January 29 in Australia.