BLUE MOON
(director/writer: Richard Linklater; screenwriter: Robert Kaplow; cinematographer: Shane F. Kelly; editor: Sandra Adair; music: Graham Reynolds; cast: Ethan Hawke (Lorenz Hart), Margaret Qualley (Elizabeth Weiland), Bobby Cannavale (Eddie, bartender), Andrew Scott (Richard Rodgers), Giles Surridge (Troy), Jonah Lees (Morty Rifkin/Knuckles, a serviceman piano player), Simon Delaney (Oscar Hammerstein
II), Cillian Sullivan (Little Stevie, Stephen Sondheim), Patrick Kennedy (E.B. White, journalist); Runtime: 100; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Mike Blizzard, John Sloss,
Richard Linklater; Sony Picture Classics; 2025)
“A great old-fashioned dramedy, with a director, writer and actor all at the top of their game.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Richard Linklater (“Waking Life”/”Boyhood”) admirably directs and Robert Kaplow smoothly scripts this gripping nostalgic biopic on the outstanding Broadway lyricist, who was raised in Oklahoma, Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke, this is the 8th film he made with Linklater), on his last days alive in NYC.
In the 1920s and 1930s composer Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) partnered with Hart, and they modernized the Broadway musical theater productions for over twenty years. The duo got away from the standard use of opera music for musical shows to use ordinary American speech in their songs.
Their partnership suffered because Hart became unreliable over the years. He drank himself to death at age 48, in November 1943. It comes at the time when Rodgers left him earlier on in the decade and partnered with Oscar Hammerstein (Simon Delaney). The newbies first collaboration was the iconic musical Oklahoma! (it ran on Broadway for 5 years to rave reviews).
Eight months before his death from pneumonia, after found drunk by a friend on a Broadway street in November of 1943, Hart is at Sardi’s drinking bourbon on March 31, 1943. He’s reluctantly served by his favorite conversationalist bartender Eddie (Bobby Cannavale), who knows he shouldn’t but is charmed into serving his older chatty patron. Sardi’s is the Broadway hotspot for the theater crowd.
The piano player at Sardi’s who Hart dubs Knuckles (Jonah Lees), is a serviceman in uniform on leave. He’s playing familiar songs from the 40s, including Rodger-Hart’s Blue Moon (with the engaging line ‘Blue moon, you saw me standing alone’).
On this auspicious night, Rodgers’ Oklahoma! is opening a block away on Broadway, and Hart is driving himself crazy thinking about the breakup and of ways to get back together again with his tuxedo wearing straight partner, while skewering Oklahoma! for being the sentimental romantic piffle it really is in my opinion.
Though gay and an unattractive short man at 4’10”, Hart drunkenly makes a clumsy and weird play for an attractive 20-year-old Yale coed, Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley), who he has been corresponding with. She meets him as arranged, at the bar. Hart introduces her to his friends as his protege. She’s the daughter of a powerful Theater Guild member, who gently rebuffs his sexual advances by saying she loves him but not in the way she thinks he wants to be loved. It turns out she’s using him to meet Rodgers. And, it seems Kaplow is using her correspondence with Hart to frame his screenplay.
The richly atmospheric film is almost entirely shot in Sardi’s, which was recreated in Ireland.
Hawke, even if he doesn’t resemble Hart, makes for a delightfully acerbic, embittered and witty self-destructive, loathing, closeted, musical talent. He’s a talkative lost soul who always wanted to be wanted, but when wanted couldn’t get the reliability part working.
The Rodgers-Hart magnificent gift to the world of music included: A Connecticut Yankee, Babes in Arms, The Boys from Syracuse and Pal Joey. Also included are the songs from the Great American Songbook: “My Funny Valentine,” “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” “Manhattan,” “The Lady is a Tramp,” “This Can’t Be Love,” and “Blue Moon.”
This wonderfully executed conventional movie is a great old-fashioned dramedy, with a director, writer and actor all at the top of their game.
It played at the Berlin Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 10/5/2025 GRADE: A-
dennisschwartzreviews.com