Blue Moon Film Analysis: Ethan Hawke's Performance Excels in Richard Linklater's Bitter Broadway Breakup Drama

Separating from the more famous colleague in a entertainment double act is a dangerous affair. Comedian Larry David did it. The same for Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this clever and deeply sorrowful chamber piece from writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker Richard Linklater recounts the nearly intolerable tale of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his separation from Richard Rodgers. He is played with flamboyant genius, an dreadful hairpiece and artificial shortness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally reduced in stature – but is also sometimes recorded positioned in an hidden depression to look up poignantly at heightened personas, addressing the lyricist's stature problem as José Ferrer in the past acted the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Motifs

Hawke earns substantial, jaded humor with Hart’s riffs on the hidden gayness of the movie Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he just watched, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he acidly calls it Okla-homo. The sexuality of Hart is complicated: this film skillfully juxtaposes his gayness with the heterosexual image created for him in the 1948 stage show the musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney acting as Lorenz Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart’s letters to his young apprentice: young Yale student and aspiring set designer the character Elizabeth Weiland, portrayed in this film with carefree youthful femininity by the performer Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the famous Broadway composing duo with composer Rodgers, Hart was accountable for matchless numbers like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But annoyed at the lyricist's addiction, unreliability and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II to write the musical Oklahoma! and then a multitude of stage and screen smashes.

Emotional Depth

The film conceives the profoundly saddened Lorenz Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s opening night NYC crowd in 1943, observing with jealous anguish as the production unfolds, hating its bland sentimentality, detesting the exclamation point at the end of the title, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how extremely potent it is. He understands a smash when he views it – and perceives himself sinking into unsuccessfulness.

Prior to the break, Hart unhappily departs and heads to the pub at Sardi’s where the remainder of the movie occurs, and waits for the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! company to show up for their following-event gathering. He realizes it is his entertainment obligation to compliment Rodgers, to pretend all is well. With suave restraint, Andrew Scott portrays Richard Rodgers, clearly embarrassed 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 the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• Bobby Cannavale plays the barman who in conventional manner hears compassionately to the character's soliloquies of acerbic misery
• Actor Patrick Kennedy acts as EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart accidentally gives the notion for his children’s book the novel Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley portrays the character Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Ivy League pupil with whom the movie conceives Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in affection

Lorenz Hart has already been jilted by Richard Rodgers. Certainly the world can’t be so cruel as to cause him to be spurned by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley mercilessly depicts a girl who wants Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can reveal her experiences with young men – as well of course the showbiz connection who can promote her occupation.

Acting Excellence

Hawke shows that Hart partly takes spectator's delight in learning of these boys but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Elizabeth Weiland and the picture tells us about something rarely touched on in films about the domain of theater music or the films: the dreadful intersection between professional and romantic failure. However at a certain point, Hart is defiantly aware that what he has attained will persist. It's an outstanding portrayal from Hawke. This might become a live show – but who shall compose the numbers?

Blue Moon was shown at the London film festival; it is released on 17 October in the USA, 14 November in the Britain and on 29 January in Australia.