Blue Moon
- Ben Pivoz
- a few seconds ago
- 3 min read
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein are one of the most famous duos in all of musical theater, responsible for productions like South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music. However, before teaming with Hammerstein, Rodgers worked closely with lyricist Lorenz Hart. While their plays aren’t as well known today, some of the songs they wrote, such as “Blue Moon,” “My Funny Valentine” and “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” are.
The biographical dramedy Blue Moon is about Lorenz Hart, once Rodgers began his pairing with Hammerstein. Set on the opening night of Oklahoma!, the first Rodgers and Hammerstein play, Hart is bitter, sad and self-deprecating as he bares his feelings to everyone at Sardis for the afterparty. This is essentially a 95-minute monologue (minus the end credits), with occasional dialogue for the other characters.
Hart is brought back to life via a fantastic performance from Ethan Hawke. He makes what could have been an exhausting character equal parts charming, funny, tragic and self-aggrandizing. It is really entertaining, which is important here because Lorenz Hart is basically the entire movie. There is no real story arc. It is just this man dealing with his partner’s success, his potential irrelevancy due to alcoholism and his hopeless love for a much younger woman. It feels stagey as we follow the lead around a single small location yet, since the screenplay is witty and the actor is great, it truly works.
It is 1942, the opening night of Oklahoma!, a surefire hit. Everyone is happy, except Lorenz Hart, waxing poetic at the bar about how terrible the new play is and how wonderful the young woman he wants to woo is. The movie watches him as he talks, complains, ruminates, tries to reunite with Richard Rodgers and attempts to win the love of the enchanting Elizabeth.
Lorenz Hart is short, with an awkward combover and a very insistent way of speaking. He has an almost unassuming lack of confidence when it comes to social matters. Yet he commands a room, definitely not effortlessly, but certainly fully. Ethan Hawke embodies this without making Hart into a caricature. This is a man at his lowest point, seeing his best friend/partner have more success in his first collaboration with someone else, deluding himself into thinking the object of his infatuation will return his affection in kind and becoming borderline unemployable thanks to his drinking habits. Despite all that, he carries on.
A brilliant man, even his complaining is intelligent and clever. Some may find him annoying, but they can’t stop listening. Hawke’s job here is to talk, a lot. When he’s not talking, he’s plotting his next attention-grabbing verbal display. As presented here, he’s the type of person you’d be excited to see show up at the bar, then discuss in amused fashion with your friends after you leave; not the type of person you’d want to be close to. His self-destructiveness would be too hard to watch. That is especially sad considering how things ended up for him.
With Blue Moon, director Richard Linklater has made what feels like a throwback. It is an adult movie; funny, vulgar, smart, very wordy, never holding its audience’s hand or inserting big developments to keep our attention. There are no major events. It is compelling seeing Hart dance around the truths he knows about himself, yet doesn’t want to admit. Though it isn’t deep, it works in so many other ways. And Ethan Hawke is tremendous.
3¾ out of 5
Cast:
Ethan Hawke as Lorenz Hart
Andrew Scott as Richard Rodgers
Margaret Qualley as Elizabeth Weiland
Bobby Cannavale as Eddie
Jonah Lees as Morty Rifkin
Directed by Richard Linklater
Screenplay by Robert Kaplow