Blue Moon Analysis: The Actor Ethan Hawke Excels in Richard Linklater's Poignant Broadway Parting Tale

Separating from the more prominent partner in a showbiz partnership is a dangerous business. Comedian Larry David experienced it. So did Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this clever and profoundly melancholic intimate film from writer the writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker Richard Linklater tells the almost agonizing story of musical theater lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his separation from Richard Rodgers. He is played with theatrical excellence, an notable toupee and fake smallness by Ethan Hawke, who is frequently digitally reduced in height – but is also sometimes recorded placed in an off-camera hole to gaze upward sadly at heightened personas, addressing the lyricist's stature problem as José Ferrer in the past acted the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Elements

Hawke achieves big, world-weary laughs with Hart’s riffs on the concealed homosexuality of the classic Casablanca and the overly optimistic stage show he’s just been to see, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-homo. The sexual identity of Hart is complicated: this movie effectively triangulates 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 intelligently infers a kind of dual attraction from the lyricist's writings to his protégée: young Yale student and aspiring set designer Elizabeth Weiland, played here with uninhibited maidenly charm by Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the famous New York theater composing duo with the composer Rodgers, Hart was in charge of matchless numbers like The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart's drinking problem, inconsistency and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and teamed up with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the show Oklahoma! and then a multitude of theater and film hits.

Emotional Depth

The movie envisions the profoundly saddened Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s premiere NYC crowd in the year 1943, looking on with jealous anguish as the production unfolds, loathing its bland sentimentality, hating the exclamation mark at the end of the title, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how extremely potent it is. He realizes a smash when he watches it – and senses himself falling into defeat.

Prior to the interval, Hart unhappily departs and makes his way to the pub at Sardi’s where the remainder of the movie occurs, and anticipates the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! company to show up for their after-party. He realizes it is his entertainment obligation to compliment Rodgers, to pretend things are fine. With polished control, Andrew Scott portrays Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what both are aware is Hart's embarrassment; he provides a consolation to his pride in the appearance of a temporary job composing fresh songs for their ongoing performance the show A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale portrays the barman who in standard fashion hears compassionately to Hart's monologues of vinegary despair
• Actor Patrick Kennedy acts as author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart inadvertently provides the idea for his youth literature the novel Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley portrays Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Ivy League pupil with whom the movie imagines Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in love

Hart has earlier been rejected by Richard Rodgers. Certainly the world couldn't be that harsh as to have him dumped by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley mercilessly depicts a young woman who wants Lorenz Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can confide her experiences with boys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can promote her occupation.

Performance Highlights

Hawke reveals that Lorenz Hart partly takes spectator's delight in listening to these boys but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Elizabeth Weiland and the movie informs us of something infrequently explored in pictures about the realm of stage musicals or the films: the dreadful intersection between career and love defeat. Yet at one stage, Lorenz Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has accomplished will survive. It's a magnificent acting job from Hawke. This may turn into a stage musical – but who shall compose the numbers?

The film Blue Moon screened at the London film festival; it is released on 17 October in the USA, 14 November in the United Kingdom and on 29 January in the Australian continent.