For a filmmaker once synonymous with sleepiness, Richard Linklater has proven himself to be one of the most amazing and consistently excellent American filmmakers. A small but rich vein of the two dozen features he made were portraits of artists, including “Me and Orson Welles” and, if you will, “School of Rock.” This fall brings two more, one at the beginning of a great career (“Nouvelle Vague,” about Jean-Luc Godard and the birth of the French New Wave) and another on the verge of its tragic end: “Blue Moon,” about lyricist Lorenz Hart. Both are, in their way, joyous celebrations of brilliant, doggedly uncompromising creative visionaries. And both are a great time at the movies. “Blue Moon,” the first of the two to arrive, is one of the more delightful movies of the year. It takes place at Sardi’s, in New York, on March 31, 1943. In the street, “Oklahoma!” premiere, a debut that stings for Hart (Ethan Hawke). His longtime collaborator, composer Richard Rodgers, made it not with Hart, but with his new songwriting partner, Oscar Hammerstein II. Six months from this night, Hart will die of pneumonia after spending a cold night outside an 8th Avenue bar. He was 48. But while Broadway’s focus on “Oklahoma!” ours is on larry, as everyone calls him. He holds court at Sardi’s in front of Rodgers (Andrew Scott) and the “Oklahoma!” The crowd rushes in. There he entertains Eddie, the bartender (Bobby Cannavale) and a few others (including EB White, played by Patrick Kennedy) in a free-flowing monologue, trying to resist the glass of whiskey on the bar, lamenting the looming sensation of “Oklahoma!” and wax poetic about some of his best lines. “I wrote a handful of words that will cheat death,” says Larry. Hart’s best work included such American songbook standards as “My Funny Valentine,” “The Lady Is a Tramp,” “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” and, of course, “Blue Moon.” But his appreciation of language goes far beyond himself. As much as he takes a warm sip of bourbon, Larry enjoys any good quip, pun or mot juste. For example, his favorite quote from “Casablanca” is a telling one: “No one ever loved me like this.” Larry loves the movie and especially Bogart, who, he notes, is both short and a leading man. “Which proves you can be both,” says Hart. Larry himself is small, with greasy hair combed over his bald head. The physical transformation for Hawke is a bit extreme and potentially distracting. There are few superficialities in the role — including Hart being a gay man — that scream Hawke. Yet the actor has simply never been better. Hawke’s Larry is a magnetic raconteur and an increasingly desperate wash whose last-ditch effort to reconcile himself to Rodgers is limited as much by his excessive drinking as his refusal to hold his tongue. He is, to put it simply, exceptionally good company. “Oklahoma!” Larry realized, was going to be staged “until Doomsday” from that moment on. Even that exclamation point annoys him. But more than that, the success of “Oklahoma!” – a musical Larry considers a “deceptive” portrait of America – casts his sorry situation in a poignant light. It is the dawn of a mainstream Americana that has no place for an unconventional man like Larry or his bluesy songs. It makes this night at Sardi’s a bittersweet salvation and a tender eulogy. Larry has an audience of only a few, but they’re a good team (Cannavale is perfect) and their quiet, snappy toasts have a lasting warmth. On the outskirts of this group is Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley), a 20-year-old Yale student with whom Larry is in love. To others, Larry’s obsession seems inconsistent with his sexuality, but he replies that he “drinks beauty wherever he finds it.” Robert Kaplow, whose novel “Me and Orson Welles” was the basis of Linklater’s film, drew on the actual correspondence between Hart and Weiland for his script for “Blue Moon”. In the film, Elizabeth is ambitious and busy with the “Oklahoma!” party. That she is destined to join them, not Larry, is clear to us. But his unconscious, irrational hope is one of the reasons to love him. Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague” is a wider story which, while the focus is on Godard, makes room for all the central characters of the New Wave. It’s a teeming movie bursting at the seams with personalities. However, “Blue Moon” is a solo act. And a magnificent one, at that. In its finest moments, Linklater’s film pays tribute not only to Hart, but to all the forgotten writers who could not cheat death, but could tell one thing from a thread. “Blue Moon,” a Sony Pictures Classics release, is rated by the Motion Picture Association for language and sexual references. Running time: 100 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.
Movie Review: Blue Moon is a touching, funny valentine, and Ethan Hawke has never been better
