🔗 Share this article Blue Moon Film Review: The Actor Ethan Hawke Excels in Director Richard Linklater's Bitter Showbiz Breakup Drama Breaking up from the better-known colleague in a entertainment partnership is a hazardous endeavor. Larry David did it. The same for Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this humorous and deeply sorrowful chamber piece from screenwriter Robert Kaplow and director Richard Linklater narrates the all but unbearable tale of songwriter for Broadway Lorenz Hart right after his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. He is played with campy brilliance, an unspeakable combover and artificial shortness by Ethan Hawke, who is often technologically minimized in stature – but is also at times shot positioned in an unseen pit to stare up wistfully at heightened personas, facing Hart’s vertical challenge as actor José Ferrer once played the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec. Complex Character and Motifs Hawke gets large, cynical chuckles with the character's witty comments on the concealed homosexuality of the classic Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he’s just been to see, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-gay. The sexual identity of Hart is complex: this movie skillfully juxtaposes his gayness with the straight persona fabricated for him in the 1948 stage show the musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney portraying Lorenz Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexuality from Hart's correspondence to his protege: youthful Yale attendee and would-be stage designer Weiland, portrayed in this film with heedless girlishness by actress Margaret Qualley. As a component of the famous musical theater lyricist-composer pair with musician Richard Rodgers, Hart was responsible for matchless numbers like The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart’s alcoholism, inconsistency and depressive outbursts, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and teamed up with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to compose Oklahoma! and then a raft of live and cinematic successes. Psychological Complexity The picture conceives the severely despondent Lorenz Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s premiere New York audience in 1943, gazing with covetous misery as the production unfolds, loathing its mild sappiness, detesting the exclamation point at the end of the title, but heartsinkingly aware of how lethally effective it is. He knows a smash when he watches it – and senses himself falling into unsuccessfulness. Even before the intermission, Lorenz Hart sadly slips away and heads to the bar at Sardi’s where the balance of the picture takes place, and anticipates the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! cast to arrive for their after-party. He is aware it is his performance responsibility to compliment Rodgers, to feign things are fine. With suave restraint, the performer Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what they both know is Hart's embarrassment; he offers a sop to his self-esteem in the form of a temporary job creating additional tunes for their existing show the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation. Actor Bobby Cannavale plays the bartender who in conventional manner listens sympathetically to the character's soliloquies of vinegary despair Actor Patrick Kennedy acts as EB White, to whom Hart accidentally gives the idea for his children’s book Stuart Little Qualley portrays Elizabeth Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale student with whom the picture conceives Lorenz Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in adoration Lorenz Hart has already been jilted by Richard Rodgers. Surely the cosmos can’t be so cruel as to cause him to be spurned by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley ruthlessly portrays a youthful female who desires Lorenz Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can disclose her experiences with boys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can further her career. Performance Highlights Hawke demonstrates that Lorenz Hart to a degree enjoys spectator's delight in listening to these guys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Elizabeth Weiland and the movie tells us about a factor infrequently explored in pictures about the realm of stage musicals or the films: the dreadful intersection between occupational and affectionate loss. Nevertheless at one stage, Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has accomplished will survive. It's an outstanding portrayal from Ethan Hawke. This could be a stage musical – but who shall compose the songs? The film Blue Moon was shown at the London movie festival; it is available on the 17th of October in the US, 14 November in the United Kingdom and on the 29th of January in the Australian continent.