Blue Moon Film Critique: Ethan Hawke Shines in Director Richard Linklater's Bitter Broadway Breakup Drama

Separating from the more famous collaborator in a performance duo is a risky business. Comedian Larry David did it. The same for Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this witty and profoundly melancholic chamber piece from screenwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker the director Richard Linklater recounts the all but unbearable tale of songwriter for Broadway Lorenz Hart just after his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with theatrical excellence, an notable toupee and artificial shortness by Ethan Hawke, who is often digitally shrunk in height – but is also sometimes shot standing in an unseen pit to look up poignantly at taller characters, confronting the lyricist's stature problem as actor José Ferrer once played the petite artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Themes

Hawke achieves large, cynical chuckles with Hart's humorous takes on the subtle queer themes of the movie Casablanca and the overly optimistic stage show he recently attended, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he acidly calls it Okla-homo. The sexuality of Hart is complex: this film effectively triangulates his queer identity with the straight persona invented for him in the 1948 musical the musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney acting as Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of bisexuality from Hart’s letters to his protégée: youthful Yale attendee and aspiring set designer Weiland, played here with uninhibited maidenly charm by actress Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the legendary Broadway lyricist-composer pair with composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was responsible for matchless numbers like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But frustrated by Hart's drinking problem, unreliability and melancholic episodes, Richard Rodgers broke with him and teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II to write the show Oklahoma! and then a series of live and cinematic successes.

Psychological Complexity

The film conceives the severely despondent Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s premiere Manhattan spectators in 1943, gazing with envious despair as the performance continues, hating its mild sappiness, detesting the exclamation point at the end of the title, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how lethally effective it is. He realizes a success when he watches it – and senses himself falling into defeat.

Prior to the intermission, Hart sadly slips away and makes his way to the pub at Sardi’s where the rest of the film takes place, and waits for the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! cast to arrive for their following-event gathering. He knows it is his entertainment obligation to praise Rodgers, to feign all is well. With smooth moderation, Andrew Scott acts as Richard Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what they both know is Hart's embarrassment; he gives a pacifier to his self-esteem in the guise of a short-term gig writing new numbers for their existing show A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale acts as the barkeeper who in standard fashion listens sympathetically to Hart’s arias of bitter despondency
• Patrick Kennedy acts as author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart inadvertently provides the notion for his kids' story the novel Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley plays the character Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Ivy League pupil with whom the movie envisions Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in adoration

Hart has previously been abandoned by Richard Rodgers. Certainly the world wouldn't be that brutal as to get him jilted by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley ruthlessly portrays a girl who wants Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can reveal her exploits with young men – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can advance her profession.

Performance Highlights

Hawke shows that Hart partly takes observational satisfaction in learning of these young men but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Elizabeth Weiland and the film informs us of a factor infrequently explored in pictures about the world of musical theatre or the films: the dreadful intersection between professional and romantic failure. However at some level, Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has achieved will persist. It's an outstanding portrayal from Ethan Hawke. This could be a theater production – but who will write the numbers?

The film Blue Moon screened at the London cinema festival; it is out on October 17 in the United States, November 14 in the United Kingdom and on January 29 in the Australian continent.