Movie Review: Blue Moon

4 stars out of 5

That I went to see Blue Moon in the theater shows two things: One, that I trust Richard Linklater as a filmmaker and two, that I’ve come a long way in my reappreciation of Ethan Hawke. (It was Linklater’s 2014 opus Boyhood which in fact ended my quarter-century Hawke boycott.) That I would learn about legendary American songwriter Lorenz Hart was a great bonus.

Going in, though certainly recognizing the names, I didn’t know the difference between Rodgers & Hammerstein and Rodgers & Hart, or that it’s the same Rodgers in both pairings. But the transition from one words-and-music duo to another is actually at the crux of this film. We see Hart attending and prematurely leaving the 1943 Broadway debut of Oklahoma!, written by his old partner Richard Rodgers and his lyrical replacement, Oscar Hammerstein. Hart retires to his regular bar, where the rest of the movie takes place.

Hawke fully committed to matching Hart’s physical appearance. Clothing and camera tricks helped him look quite short, while hair and makeup added an unfortunate combover. And Hawke’s strong performance, shifting from arrogance to pride to hiding disappointment to desperation to heartache, absolutely dominates the film.

The first third of the film, with Hart holding court at the bar before the Oklahoma! party arrives, is 1940s rapid-fire witty dialogue perfection. Bobby Cannavale basically plays himself as the nice-guy bartender and Hart’s foil. Kudos to Patrick Kennedy as customer-sitting-at-a-table E.B. White. Kennedy looks like a real person instead of an actor playing a role, if that makes sense. A scene with famous White could’ve been corny, but everyone involved makes it work, and the character adds a note of calm to the larger scene. Meanwhile, Jonah Lees as the pianist in the corner supplies elements of youth, innocence, admiration, and ambition.

Then things get messy. Margaret Qualley arrives as the college student poor Lorenz has pinned all his hopes and dreams on. Want to guess if she feels the same way? And then Rodgers (Andrew Scott) and Hammerstein and Oklahoma! cast and crew and society hangers-on all show up, and it all gets a little overwhelming for our tiny protagonist, watching his old partner bathing in accolades while Lorenz is bathing in gin and headed in the other direction.

Later, I looked up Rodgers & Hammerstein’s run of hugely successful musicals. And yet, nothing in them matches the songbook legacy of Hart’s “Blue Moon” and “My Funny Valentine.” I feel like Rodgers is Jay Leno, the broad people pleaser, and Lorenz Hart is Letterman, brilliant, sardonic, and sickened by the phoniness all around.

I expect Ethan Hawke to be Oscar nominated. And I hope some bright theater type will stage this as a play. The limited sets, the emphasis on dialogue — it would totally work!