Ethan Hawke (TRAINING DAY) gives his career-best performance as the charismatic but despairing lyricist Lorenz Hart in Richard Linklater's latest film, BLUE MOON.
The entirety of the film takes place in the iconic Broadway restaurant Sardi's lending the film the air of a filmed play, but no worse for that. This is because Hart's kinetic wit and a clever use of different sections of the restaurant keep us enlivened and riveted.
The entire movie also takes place on a single evening in the early 1940s. Hart's old composing partner Richard Rodgers is debuting his latest musical with his new lyricist, Oscar Hammerstein II. Just this little thing you may have heard of called Oklahoma! Hart is in despair because he recognises that the musical will be a smash hit - bigger than anything that he wrote with Rodgers - and also that it's not very good. He is also in despair because both of his loves are unattainable.
The first of these loves is the beautiful 20-year old college girl Elizabeth Weiland (Margot Qualley - THE SUBSTANCE). Elizabeth uses Hart for his connections and basks in his flattery but has no real interest in him. The idea that they could ever be a real couple is a delusion that Hart knows is a delusion but indulges all the same. Their scenes snap and fizzle in the same way that gossip between young female best friends snaps and fizzles. Hart feels more like a gay best friend than a putative lover. The inevitable blow is well telegraphed and (literally) pathetic.
The second, and more significant unattainable love is that of Hart's friend and long-time collaborator Richard Rodgers. Their scenes are far more delicate and heart-breaking than those between Hart and Elizabeth because the love has lasted longer and the break-up was more devastating. Andrew Scott's Rodgers is a man with incredible respect for Hart as a lyricist, and his evident love for the man is signalled in every look and line. But Rodgers is also a man who has lived with the pain of being let down and let down again by an alcoholic and who cannot bear to see Hart himself more. It's a performance of rare subtlety. In the wrong hands their scenes could have been soapy and melodramatic. But the genuine love and hurt and need for self-protection are telegraphed with a delicacy and tenderness that moved me greatly.
I cannot speak highly enough of a film that will has the confidence to sit comfortably within its single location, that allows Rodgers to be the quiet straight man to Hart's brilliant and performative showboat, and that trusts its audience with its Easter Eggs - the inspiration for E.B. White's Stuart Little, or a cameo from Little Stevie (Sondheim).
Kudos to all in front of the camera but most of all to Robert Kaplow (ME & ORSON WELLES) for a script of rare insight and humanity.
BLUE MOON has a running time of 100 minutes and is rated R. It had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.
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