Blue Moon Critique: Ethan Hawke's Performance Delivers in Director Richard Linklater's Heartbreaking Showbiz Split Story

Separating from the more famous colleague in a showbiz double act is a hazardous affair. Larry David went through it. Likewise Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this clever and deeply sorrowful chamber piece from screenwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker Richard Linklater narrates the all but unbearable account of musical theater lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his split from Richard Rodgers. He is played with flamboyant genius, an notable toupee and artificial shortness by Ethan Hawke, who is often technologically minimized in stature – but is also at times filmed standing in an off-camera hole to look up poignantly at heightened personas, addressing Hart’s vertical challenge as actor José Ferrer once played the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Elements

Hawke earns substantial, jaded humor with Hart's humorous takes on the subtle queer themes of the classic Casablanca and the excessively cheerful theater production he recently attended, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-homo. The sexual identity of Hart is complicated: this film clearly contrasts his gayness with the heterosexual image fabricated for him in the 1948 stage show the musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney playing Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of dual attraction from Hart’s letters to his protégée: young Yale student and would-be stage designer Elizabeth Weiland, acted in this movie with heedless girlishness by the performer Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the famous New York theater composing duo with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was responsible for matchless numbers like The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But frustrated by Hart's drinking problem, undependability and melancholic episodes, Rodgers ended their partnership and teamed up with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to compose Oklahoma! and then a multitude of live and cinematic successes.

Emotional Depth

The movie envisions the severely despondent Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s first-night NYC crowd in 1943, observing with envious despair as the performance continues, loathing its bland sentimentality, hating the exclamation mark at the conclusion of the name, but dishearteningly conscious of how extremely potent it is. He knows a success when he views it – and perceives himself sinking into failure.

Before the intermission, Lorenz Hart unhappily departs and goes to the pub at the venue Sardi's where the balance of the picture occurs, and anticipates the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! cast to show up for their following-event gathering. He is aware it is his performance responsibility to compliment Rodgers, to feign all is well. With suave restraint, actor Andrew Scott portrays Richard Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what both are aware is Hart’s humiliation; he offers a sop to his pride in the form of a brief assignment composing fresh songs for their existing show the show A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale acts as the barkeeper who in traditional style listens sympathetically to Hart's monologues of bitter despondency
• Patrick Kennedy portrays writer EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart unintentionally offers the notion for his kids' story the book Stuart Little
• Qualley portrays Elizabeth Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale attendee with whom the movie imagines Lorenz Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in affection

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Rodgers. Undoubtedly the world wouldn't be that brutal as to get him jilted by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley ruthlessly portrays a young woman who wants Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can reveal her exploits with guys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can promote her occupation.

Acting Excellence

Hawke shows that Lorenz Hart to a degree enjoys voyeuristic pleasure in learning of these young men but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Weiland and the film tells us about a factor rarely touched on in movies about the world of musical theatre or the cinema: the dreadful intersection between career and love defeat. Nevertheless at a certain point, Lorenz Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has attained will survive. It’s a terrific performance from Ethan Hawke. This may turn into a theater production – but who will write the numbers?

The film Blue Moon was shown at the London movie festival; it is out on 17 October in the United States, November 14 in the UK and on January 29 in Australia.