Blue Moon Film Analysis: The Actor Ethan Hawke Shines in Richard Linklater's Bitter Broadway Parting Tale

Breaking up from the more prominent collaborator in a showbiz double act is a dangerous business. Comedian Larry David went through it. Likewise Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this clever and heartbreakingly sad chamber piece from screenwriter Robert Kaplow and filmmaker Richard Linklater recounts the nearly intolerable story of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his separation from Richard Rodgers. He is played with theatrical excellence, an notable toupee and simulated diminutiveness by Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally reduced in stature – but is also at times recorded placed in an hidden depression to gaze upward sadly at more statuesque figures, facing Hart’s vertical challenge as José Ferrer previously portrayed the petite Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Motifs

Hawke achieves substantial, jaded humor with Hart’s riffs on the concealed homosexuality of the classic Casablanca and the excessively cheerful stage show he recently attended, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-gay. The orientation of Lorenz Hart is complex: this film skillfully juxtaposes his gayness with the heterosexual image fabricated for him in the 1948 stage show the production Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney acting as Lorenz Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart’s letters to his young apprentice: youthful Yale attendee and budding theater artist the character Elizabeth Weiland, played here with uninhibited maidenly charm by Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the famous New York theater songwriting team with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was responsible for unparalleled tunes like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But annoyed at the lyricist's addiction, inconsistency and melancholic episodes, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the musical Oklahoma! and then a series of stage and screen smashes.

Sentimental Layers

The movie envisions the profoundly saddened Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s opening night New York audience in 1943, gazing with covetous misery as the show proceeds, loathing its bland sentimentality, hating the exclamation mark at the conclusion of the name, but dishearteningly conscious of how extremely potent it is. He realizes a success when he watches it – and feels himself descending into failure.

Before the intermission, Lorenz Hart unhappily departs and makes his way to the pub at the venue Sardi's where the rest of the film takes place, and anticipates the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! troupe to appear for their after-party. He realizes it is his showbiz duty to congratulate Richard Rodgers, to pretend things are fine. With suave restraint, Andrew Scott plays Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what each understands is Hart's embarrassment; he offers a sop to his self-esteem in the appearance of a temporary job writing new numbers for their ongoing performance the show A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale portrays the barman who in conventional manner listens sympathetically to Hart’s arias of bitter despondency
• Actor Patrick Kennedy plays EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart accidentally gives the concept for his children’s book the novel Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley acts as the character Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale student with whom the movie envisions Hart to be intricately and masochistically in love

Lorenz Hart has already been jilted by Richard Rodgers. Surely the cosmos couldn't be that harsh as to get him jilted by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley mercilessly depicts a young woman who desires Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can disclose her exploits with guys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can further her career.

Acting Excellence

Hawke demonstrates that Lorenz Hart somewhat derives voyeuristic pleasure in learning of these guys but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Elizabeth Weiland and the film tells us about a factor seldom addressed in films about the domain of theater music or the films: the awful convergence between career and love defeat. However at one stage, Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has accomplished will survive. It's an outstanding portrayal from Ethan Hawke. This could be a live show – but who would create the numbers?

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