Blue Moon Movie Critique: The Actor Ethan Hawke Delivers in Director Richard Linklater's Poignant Showbiz Parting Tale

Parting ways from the more prominent partner in a showbiz partnership is a dangerous business. Comedian Larry David did it. So did Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this clever and heartbreakingly sad small-scale drama from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and helmer the director Richard Linklater narrates the almost agonizing account of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his separation from Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with theatrical excellence, an unspeakable combover and artificial shortness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is regularly technologically minimized in stature – but is also sometimes filmed positioned in an unseen pit to stare up wistfully at taller characters, facing Hart’s vertical challenge as actor José Ferrer once played the small-statured Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Themes

Hawke earns big, world-weary laughs with the character's witty comments on the concealed homosexuality of the film Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat musical he just watched, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-homo. The sexual identity of Lorenz Hart is complicated: this picture effectively triangulates his gayness with the heterosexual image invented for him in the 1948 stage show the musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney portraying Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of dual attraction from the lyricist's writings to his protégée: college student at Yale and aspiring set designer Elizabeth Weiland, portrayed in this film with heedless girlishness by Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the renowned musical theater lyricist-composer pair with the composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was accountable for unparalleled tunes like The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart’s alcoholism, inconsistency and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers broke with him and teamed up with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the musical Oklahoma! and then a multitude of live and cinematic successes.

Emotional Depth

The film conceives the profoundly saddened Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s opening night Manhattan spectators in the year 1943, gazing with jealous anguish as the performance continues, hating its mild sappiness, detesting the exclamation point at the finish of the heading, but dishearteningly conscious of how lethally effective it is. He understands a smash when he sees one – and perceives himself sinking into unsuccessfulness.

Prior to the break, Hart unhappily departs and makes his way to the tavern at the venue Sardi's where the remainder of the movie unfolds, and anticipates the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! troupe to arrive for their following-event gathering. He knows it is his entertainment obligation to congratulate Richard Rodgers, to feign things are fine. With suave restraint, actor Andrew Scott plays Richard Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what both are aware is Hart’s humiliation; he provides a consolation to his self-esteem in the guise of a brief assignment creating additional tunes for their current production A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale plays the barkeeper who in traditional style listens sympathetically to Hart’s arias of vinegary despair
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy portrays writer EB White, to whom Hart accidentally gives the idea for his kids' story the novel Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley plays Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale attendee with whom the film conceives Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in adoration

Hart has previously been abandoned by Richard Rodgers. Certainly the universe couldn't be that harsh as to cause him to be spurned by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley ruthlessly portrays a girl who wants Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can reveal her adventures with guys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can advance her profession.

Acting Excellence

Hawke reveals that Lorenz Hart to a degree enjoys voyeuristic pleasure in learning of these guys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Weiland and the picture reveals to us an aspect infrequently explored in films about the domain of theater music or the films: the awful convergence between professional and romantic failure. Nevertheless at some level, Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has accomplished will survive. It's an outstanding portrayal from Hawke. This may turn into a live show – but who shall compose the numbers?

Blue Moon screened at the London movie festival; it is out on October 17 in the USA, the 14th of November in the United Kingdom and on 29 January in the Australian continent.