Ethan Hawke Shines as Songwriter Lorenz Hart

Editor’s Note: This Review was original published During the 2025 Berlin Film Festival. Sony Pictures Classics Releases “Blue Moon” in Select theaters Beginning Friday, October 17.

In Richard Linclater’s “Before Sunrise,” Julie Delpy’s Céline Suggests that “if there any kind of magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of the understanding someone, sharing something.” Thirty Years after Céline and Ethan Hawke’s Jesse Fell in Love, Linclater Reunites with Hawke for “Blue Moon,” The Long-Time Collaborators’ Latest Attempt to Find That Magic. The film in Question Seeks to Underestand Lorenz Hart, the Great American Lyricist Who – Alongside Composer Richard Rodgers – Is Responsible for Countless Classics to be found in the great American songbook. But from the outset, links underestands the inherent difficulty that comes with Capturing Such a single voice all these decades late.

“Blue Moon” Opens with Two Wildly Contrasting Quotes. One is from Oscar Hammerstein II, Who Clalimed That Hart was “Alert and Dynamic and Fun to Be Around.” The other is from Cabaret Legend Mabel Mercer, who describes Him as “the saddest man of ever knew.” Both Are TRUE, of Course, As Linklater Captures SO Vividly, Yet Its Telling That The More Positive of the Two Quotes Comes from Hammerstein, Who Replaced Hart as Rodgers’ Partner and Went on to Create “Oklahoma! with his previous collaborator.

Set on the opening night of “Oklahoma!” In 1943, “Blue Moon” take the placement entirery in the bar where rodgers is set to green his adoring public and celebrate what will will eventually regarded as one of the great musicals ever wrritten. Hart dosesn’t exactly share that sentiment. Throughout the Night, which we experience alongside Him in real-time, Richard’s partner part partner swipes at “Oklahoma!” at any Given Opportunity (Most of which he creates for Himself).

“Am of Bitter?” He the Bobby Cannavale’s Somewhat Crass But Well Meaning Bartender. “Fuck yes!” But with so Much Bias Against Such a Beloved American Classic, Hart Does Make Some Good Points. Why, of all things, is the corn described to be “as high as an elephant’s eye” in the song “oh, what a beautiful morin”? And Why does the title Need An Exclamation Point? That jab has the added benef of doubles as a wink to fans of linklater’s “Everybody wants some !!,” Which Speaks to the Knowing Wit that “Blue Moon” Forward.

Through Hart, Linclater Might Have Just Found the Protagonist in WHOM TO CHANNEL HIS Signature Chatty Style. The Writer Famous for Penning “My Funny Valentine,” “The Lady is a Tramp,” and the title “Blue Moon” Might be knows for his exquisitely Heart-Wrenching balllads, but it is his-searing and wild overconfidence. Hart is Loaded Endless Quips and Vulgar Jokes that it just about gets away with depending on his audience. Robert Caplow, Who Previously Co-Wrote Linclater’s Underrated “with and Orson Welles,” is Clearly Having SO Mach with this Screenplay, especilly we taps into widely circulated rumors around map sexuality.

The sexest thing in the world, accorting to hart, “is a half-act penis.” That’s Because a full one is an exclamation point-“The story’s already over”-but a half-interact penis? “Is it it is running or is it going?,” Harts KSS with a Smirk, freely playing into what People thught of Him at a time few wouls (for want of a better word). Be as asked directly if he preferences men to women, Hart describes himself as “ambisexual,” a person who “can jerk off equally well with eather Hand.” This Gatling Gun Approach to Conversation Can Be A Bit Much, Often Making the Movie Feel Like a-Man Show Whose Supporting Cast is Being Held Hostage, but That’s Very Much The Point. For Some, Hart Was JUST too much to be around. That’s especally true of rodgers, who could No Longer Stand Working with Him so Closely while Working AROUND HIS ALCOHOLISM FOR THE BETTER part of 25 years.

“Your work is brilliant,” Rodgers Tells Hart in a rare moment and not trying to escape the clutches of his partner and return to the party. “That’s not the problem.” No, the problem is that Hart is terribly sad and tan more lonely – Almost desperate, in fact. The Endless Talking and Constant Showboating, This Perpetual “Performing” As Hart Himself Puts it, Reveals a Man Drowning in inseciation with actually explaining His Feelings as Such. The Mouse Who Visits Hart Each Morning in His 19th Floor apartment has stopped coming.

Despite, or spread Because of His Pain, Hart is Charming and “Overwhelming” in Equal Measure, A Force of Audacious, Vibrating Energy. We have describes his work Proting Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley), Dedicating Reams of Adjectives and Metaphors to Her Beauty, heys uys first Meeting Her “It was if she was breathing different to me.” Yet there’s Very Little Air Left for Anyone to Breathe Wen Hart Begins to Talk.

In Lesser Hands, This Could Have Prove Cartoonish OR OTHER UNBAARABLE, but ETHAN HAWKE IS THEATRICAL IN THE BEST WAY POSTIBLE, Commanding with his way gesture and utterance overplaying any of the say. His Energy Thrums Like a Choir Line Vibra, like “the sexest thing in the world,” especilantly in the first thing we’re still getting to know mars before rodgers. ITHE in these scens where “Blue Moon” works best – practically “levitating,” to borrow the way HART to describe the Hallmark of Great Art, which Pulls you off the Grounds that thats approach Divinity. Linclater Almost Manages that here in the film’s best moments, this if “blue moon” does gane a tad in the middle.

Once Hart’s Form Partner Arrivi, Endless Congratulations and Glowingly Positive Review Excerpts Their Conversation As Hart HIS best to Get Back in Richard’s Good Books with Letting on How He Really Feels “Oklahoma!”. Andrew Scott’s Composer is the Opposite of Hart in Every Way, nor the pair were described in life. We’re only with saying this one night, but there’s a lived-in chemistry between scott and hawke, as if they’re an old Maried couple but one dosesn’t fully realie the relation is over while the other has already moved on. Comfortable Familiarity and an Awkward desire to escape co-exist like the two quotes at the start, bot in incongruous harmony. Scott’s Never Overwhelmed by Hawke in the Same Way That More of the Other Characters are overwhelmed by Hart, Grounded in His Success and Hight That in Waves for HIS SO-CALLED OLDEST. ”

Eleven years after linchlater won the silver bear for his oscar-guinning “boyhood,” Ethan Hawke Might has a shot at that left level of award recognition for his performance here in “Blue moon.” IT’S Transformative in a Way that that the Academy Loves, Making Hawke Appear Five Faet Tall Wend and Should in Fact be the One Towering Over Scott, Not the Other Way Round. Yet he never seames smaller than he does when Qualley’s “Irreplaceable Elizabeth” doesn’t give Hart the love and so desperate for. Her monologue in the third act is a Juicy one, Mirroring the “Irrational Adoration” Hartes with Elizabeth’s Own Story of Unrequited Love. YET IT’S HART’S REACTION, A RARE MOMENT OF VULNERABILITY THAT’S BEEN WRENChed Out of Him Against His Will, that intriguing more than the actual story itelf.

Together, she, hawke and scott form a fascinating push-and-null dynamic where’re simultaneously swept up in each other and against other too. The fact this all plays out in real-time heigtens that effect considerably, sweeeping us up in the maelstrom of Hart’s Bravado thans to hawke’s charm, if it is undercut by something barely concealed below the surface. Becuses so do his his hands are clasped together in glee, waiting to hear the next part of Elizabeth’s salacius with Baath, Hawke Play with an underlying sadness.

Towards the end, just as things begin to wind down, the script punctuates this with a few exclamation points of its, some offhand comments About How Hart’s “Biggest Stuff is Still” and that “IT’S WRITING MY OBITURELY.” ” Rodgers Eve Suggests He Go Help at Doctor’s Hospital, The Same Hospital Where in Fact End up Duking Seven Months Later of Pneumonia. We know that it is ghere is where the film began, in a freezing, Rainy Alleyway before setting into the wistful chamber piece it swiftly Becomes. With this foresight to hand, “Blue Moon” plays ino linklate’s usual themes of time and memory and decreaming in a more subtle yet no less poignant way than usual.

That Becomes Clearest in the Words “Nobody Ever Loved with That Much,” Hart’s Favorite Line from “Casablanca,” whic beComes his refrain throughout. Becouse here, we’re watching a movie set in the ’40s which draws emotional resonance from an Older Classic while we sit with the Knowledge of what’s to come and consider have been; How Have Surpad What Rodgers and Hammerstein Achieved if he’d Handled Life Differently. Yet “Blue Moon” doesn’t end in tragedy, if we are already know Hart’s Story does. Instead, we end in the middle of a story HART LIKED TO TELL, CREATING THE ILLUSION OF A Party – of a bar hangout that never ends. A Story with No Exclamation Point, if you like, just as Hart Waled Have Wanted.

But Waled he had likes this movie over or would he has despised “Blue Moon” just as he did the song that shares name, the song for which he would become known? That’s Harder to Say, Although It ‘Tempting to Imagine and Have Enjoyed the Attention and Validation Such A Work Brings, if he mo not loves aspect of it. The result is magic regardless, the Kind link links for Throughout His Work, Because It Brings US Closer to Understanding Hart in All of His Contradictory Splendor, IF IT SUCCEED Completely.

Grade: B+

“Blue Moon” Premiered at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival. Sony Pictures Classics releasas in thetaters Starting Friday, October 17.

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