Blue Moon Film Analysis: Ethan Hawke Shines in Director Richard Linklater's Poignant Showbiz Breakup Drama

Separating from the more prominent collaborator in a entertainment double act is a risky affair. Comedian Larry David went through it. So did Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this witty and deeply sorrowful chamber piece from screenwriter Robert Kaplow and director Richard Linklater narrates the all but unbearable account of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his breakup from Richard Rodgers. He is played with flamboyant genius, an notable toupee and fake smallness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally shrunk in height – but is also sometimes shot standing in an off-camera hole to look up poignantly at more statuesque figures, facing Hart's height issue as José Ferrer previously portrayed the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Elements

Hawke earns substantial, jaded humor with Hart’s riffs on the subtle queer themes of the film Casablanca and the excessively cheerful stage show he’s just been to see, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he bitingly labels it Okla-gay. The sexuality of Lorenz Hart is multifaceted: this movie skillfully juxtaposes his homosexuality with the straight persona created for him in the 1948 musical the production Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney playing Lorenz Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart's correspondence to his protégée: youthful Yale attendee and budding theater artist Weiland, played here with uninhibited maidenly charm by the performer Margaret Qualley.

As part of the legendary Broadway composing duo with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was accountable for matchless numbers like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But exasperated with Hart's drinking problem, inconsistency and depressive outbursts, Richard Rodgers ended their partnership and joined forces with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the show Oklahoma! and then a multitude of stage and screen smashes.

Emotional Depth

The movie conceives the profoundly saddened Lorenz Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s premiere Manhattan spectators in 1943, looking on with jealous anguish as the performance continues, loathing its bland sentimentality, detesting the exclamation point at the end of the title, but dishearteningly conscious of how devastatingly successful it is. He realizes a hit when he views it – and senses himself falling into defeat.

Prior to the interval, Lorenz Hart sadly slips away and makes his way to the bar at the establishment Sardi's where the balance of the picture unfolds, and expects the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! cast to appear for their post-show celebration. He realizes it is his showbiz duty to compliment Rodgers, to act as if all is well. With suave restraint, Andrew Scott portrays Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what they both know is Hart's embarrassment; he provides a consolation to his pride in the form of a temporary job creating additional tunes for their ongoing performance the show A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale plays the barkeeper who in traditional style hears compassionately to Hart's monologues of bitter despondency
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy acts as EB White, to whom Hart inadvertently provides the concept for his children’s book the novel Stuart Little
• Qualley plays Elizabeth Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale attendee with whom the film envisions Hart to be intricately and masochistically in love

Lorenz Hart has already been jilted by Rodgers. Undoubtedly the cosmos wouldn't be that brutal as to cause him to be spurned by Weiland as well? But Qualley ruthlessly portrays a youthful female who wishes Lorenz Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can confide her adventures with boys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can further her career.

Standout Roles

Hawke shows that Hart somewhat derives voyeuristic pleasure in listening to these guys but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Weiland and the film informs us of an aspect infrequently explored in movies about the world of musical theatre or the movies: the awful convergence between professional and romantic failure. Nevertheless at a certain point, Lorenz Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has accomplished will endure. It’s a terrific performance from Ethan Hawke. This may turn into a stage musical – but who shall compose the numbers?

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