October 24, 2025
FILM: BLUE MOON
DIRECTED BY: RICHARD LINKLATER
STARRING: ETHAN HAWKE, MARGARET QUALLEY, BOBBY CANNAVALE
RATING: 3 out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
In Blue Moon, one of two films from Richard Linklater being released this year, we spend an entire evening in a bar with Lorenz Hart, one of the great songwriters of the early 20th Century. It’s 1943 and a night of celebration, not for Hart, but for his former writing partner Richard Rodgers whose new show with Oscar Hammerstein, Oklahoma!, has just opened on Broadway. Hart, on the other hand, is on a downward spiral. We learn right from the start that he will die at the age of 48, seven months later. While this is a somewhat sobering story it isn’t a complete downer, thanks in part to the commanding performance by Ethan Hawke as Hart. He is at the center of every scene, which basically is presented in real-time, making for an interesting if overly verbose 100-minute film.
The story is based on letters between Hart and Elizabeth Weiland, played here by Margaret Qualley. It’s not the most obvious idea for a film. In fact, it feels more like a one-man stage show than something which would draw people to movie theaters. Other than a scene at the start upon Hart’s death, Linklater spends all of our time at Sardi’s, the famed Broadway bar where celebs have been frequenting and having their portraits drawn for almost a hundred years now. Hart sits at the bar talking rather incessantly to bartender Eddie, played by Bobby Cannavale. They discuss, in part, Hart’s distaste for what Rodgers is doing with his new show while also openly addressing Hart’s sexual interest in other men. However, he calls himself an “omnisexual” because he’s open to all kinds of love. He’s got a protégé in Elizabeth who also enters the bar. She’s only 20 years old but Hart is smitten with her. While he does most of the talking with everyone else in the bar, he does give Elizabeth all of his attention as she discusses a young man that she is in love with, much to Hart’s dismay.
The scene between the two of them, while very well-acted, feels a bit unnecessary to the rest of the what the film is going for. Yes, it’s another sign that things aren’t working out for Hart but her own monologue goes on a bit too long. Talking scenes like this though are most of what the film offers for viewers. There isn’t any action to speak of (nor should there be) and no cutaways to the outside streets (the film was actually shot in Ireland.)
Interactions between Hart and Andrew Scott as Rogers suggest a different kind of relationship. Hart wants to rekindle their collaborative magic with a show about Marco Polo. Clearly, Rogers is a bit distracted by the excitement over Oklahoma! and isn’t really fully engaged. But since Hart is so persistent in sharing his thoughts and ideas, Rogers finds it hard to break away. Scott won a Best Supporting Actor prize at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year for the role. I doubt such an award will be repeated at the Oscars since his isn’t the most interesting part in the film and Scott gives a pretty low-key performance.
All of the attention is and should be on Ethan Hawke. His acting is pretty transformative. Because Hart was only five feet tall he has to appear smaller than the others in the bar, which of course can be achieved through a variety of camera tricks, but Hawke carries himself in a manner that makes us believe he possesses Hart’s reduced size. He also sports a short comb over haircut and presents Hart as a fairly optimistic, wide-eyed middle aged man. He’s pretty fascinating to watch. The problem is that he has so many long monologues that his scenes become rather exhausting to watch fairly quickly.
While this story and Linklater’s manner of telling it may seem unusual for the director, he’s actually been a master of depicting stories that take place over short periods of time for much of his career. Another film he did with Hawke, 2001’s Tape, also took place in one setting, a motel room, in one night. Linklater opens up such one room stories with a variety of different camera angles and perspectives. He’s also explored single weekends in films such as Dazed and Confused and Everybody Wants Some! Of course, his Before trilogy of films with Hawke also each take place over the course of one day or night. So, Linklater has been down this road before. He’s also explored another legendary early 20th Century artist in his 2008 film, Me and Orson Welles.
Whether this one is ultimately successful or not will probably depend on viewers’ interest in Hart, or for that matter, Ethan Hawke. We certainly learn a lot about Hart, although I’d have liked to see a bit more emphasis on his noted homosexual life. Since the film is based on those letters with Elizabeth though, it’s not overly surprising that she became one of the focuses of the script by Robert Kaplow.
While this might not go down as one of Linklater’s best films, it is an interesting portrait of a man who may have peaked too early in his career and how his drinking and desires may have curtailed what could have been an even longer distinguished songwriting career.
Blue Moon is now in playing theaters.
FILM: BLUE MOON
DIRECTED BY: RICHARD LINKLATER
STARRING: ETHAN HAWKE, MARGARET QUALLEY, BOBBY CANNAVALE
RATING: 3 out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
In Blue Moon, one of two films from Richard Linklater being released this year, we spend an entire evening in a bar with Lorenz Hart, one of the great songwriters of the early 20th Century. It’s 1943 and a night of celebration, not for Hart, but for his former writing partner Richard Rodgers whose new show with Oscar Hammerstein, Oklahoma!, has just opened on Broadway. Hart, on the other hand, is on a downward spiral. We learn right from the start that he will die at the age of 48, seven months later. While this is a somewhat sobering story it isn’t a complete downer, thanks in part to the commanding performance by Ethan Hawke as Hart. He is at the center of every scene, which basically is presented in real-time, making for an interesting if overly verbose 100-minute film.
The story is based on letters between Hart and Elizabeth Weiland, played here by Margaret Qualley. It’s not the most obvious idea for a film. In fact, it feels more like a one-man stage show than something which would draw people to movie theaters. Other than a scene at the start upon Hart’s death, Linklater spends all of our time at Sardi’s, the famed Broadway bar where celebs have been frequenting and having their portraits drawn for almost a hundred years now. Hart sits at the bar talking rather incessantly to bartender Eddie, played by Bobby Cannavale. They discuss, in part, Hart’s distaste for what Rodgers is doing with his new show while also openly addressing Hart’s sexual interest in other men. However, he calls himself an “omnisexual” because he’s open to all kinds of love. He’s got a protégé in Elizabeth who also enters the bar. She’s only 20 years old but Hart is smitten with her. While he does most of the talking with everyone else in the bar, he does give Elizabeth all of his attention as she discusses a young man that she is in love with, much to Hart’s dismay.
The scene between the two of them, while very well-acted, feels a bit unnecessary to the rest of the what the film is going for. Yes, it’s another sign that things aren’t working out for Hart but her own monologue goes on a bit too long. Talking scenes like this though are most of what the film offers for viewers. There isn’t any action to speak of (nor should there be) and no cutaways to the outside streets (the film was actually shot in Ireland.)
Interactions between Hart and Andrew Scott as Rogers suggest a different kind of relationship. Hart wants to rekindle their collaborative magic with a show about Marco Polo. Clearly, Rogers is a bit distracted by the excitement over Oklahoma! and isn’t really fully engaged. But since Hart is so persistent in sharing his thoughts and ideas, Rogers finds it hard to break away. Scott won a Best Supporting Actor prize at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year for the role. I doubt such an award will be repeated at the Oscars since his isn’t the most interesting part in the film and Scott gives a pretty low-key performance.
All of the attention is and should be on Ethan Hawke. His acting is pretty transformative. Because Hart was only five feet tall he has to appear smaller than the others in the bar, which of course can be achieved through a variety of camera tricks, but Hawke carries himself in a manner that makes us believe he possesses Hart’s reduced size. He also sports a short comb over haircut and presents Hart as a fairly optimistic, wide-eyed middle aged man. He’s pretty fascinating to watch. The problem is that he has so many long monologues that his scenes become rather exhausting to watch fairly quickly.
While this story and Linklater’s manner of telling it may seem unusual for the director, he’s actually been a master of depicting stories that take place over short periods of time for much of his career. Another film he did with Hawke, 2001’s Tape, also took place in one setting, a motel room, in one night. Linklater opens up such one room stories with a variety of different camera angles and perspectives. He’s also explored single weekends in films such as Dazed and Confused and Everybody Wants Some! Of course, his Before trilogy of films with Hawke also each take place over the course of one day or night. So, Linklater has been down this road before. He’s also explored another legendary early 20th Century artist in his 2008 film, Me and Orson Welles.
Whether this one is ultimately successful or not will probably depend on viewers’ interest in Hart, or for that matter, Ethan Hawke. We certainly learn a lot about Hart, although I’d have liked to see a bit more emphasis on his noted homosexual life. Since the film is based on those letters with Elizabeth though, it’s not overly surprising that she became one of the focuses of the script by Robert Kaplow.
While this might not go down as one of Linklater’s best films, it is an interesting portrait of a man who may have peaked too early in his career and how his drinking and desires may have curtailed what could have been an even longer distinguished songwriting career.
Blue Moon is now in playing theaters.