The great American lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) collapses on a side street one rainy night in New York at the age of 48. This is the prologue of Richard Linklater’s new film, Blue Moon, his latest collaboration with Hawke and an expectedly poignant one from the prolific director.
The film quickly waltzes from this rainy street to the bar at Sardi’s restaurant in Manhattan, to an evening of reflection and sorrow seven months prior. That evening is the opening night of the hit musical, Oklahoma!, which Hart leaves early. He heads to Sardi’s to talk the night away before an audience of three – a bartender (Bobby Cannavale), an enlisted pianist on leave (Jonah Lees) and the writer E.B. White (Patrick Kennedy).
Hart slates Oklahoma!, hating its shallow Americana kitsch but fully aware of its soon-to-be-stratospheric status. He’s jealous of its writer, Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott), as the two were until recently a hugely successful songwriting duo. Together, they wrote iconic songs like My Funny Valentine, The Lady Is a Tramp, and of course the titular Blue Moon, but Rodgers grew tired of Hart’s unreliability and alcoholism and partnered with Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney) instead. Rodgers and Hammerstein would go on to be legendary, getting off to a flying start with Oklahoma! and going on to write award-winning shows like Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music in the golden age of musical theatre, the 1940s and 50s.
On the evening of Linklater’s film, then, Hart is a bitter man. Bitter and ‘drunk with beauty wherever he finds it’. To – or rather at – those in attendance, he delivers a non-stop commentary on song, the screen and the stage, frequently recalling his favourite line from Casablanca – ‘Nobody ever loved me that much’ – and gushing over Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley), a beautiful Yale student half his age who doesn’t return his affection. There is a great deal of vulnerability to Hawke’s Hart, not just owing to his diminutive height (less than five feet) and unfortunate comb-over, but more to his wounded heart, his intense insecurity, his evident genius and yet his fading relevance.
When Elizabeth arrives, the old Hollywood glamour about Qualley slots right into this believably-rendered crowd of Broadway socialites, and later, Andrew Scott convincingly steps into frame as Rodgers, swanning into the bar with the rest of his posse to await the first newspaper reviews of Oklahoma! Hart knows success when he sees it and so does Rodgers – though gracious and serious, Rodgers can’t help but feel rather buoyed by the exuberant praise he’s showered with on this intoxicating evening. This, of course, leaves Hart all the more bitter, and allows for Hawke and Scott to really flex their acting muscles in some painfully awkward scenes where the two dance around their frustrations with each others’ creative approaches, a confusing concoction of friendship, anger, gratitude, jealousy and pity swirling between the two. There is much tension between them – Hart longs to write ‘emotionally complex’ shows and prefers satire, and Rodgers questions whether there’s ‘something wrong with sentimentality’. Hart says it’s ‘too easy’, but Oklahoma!’s success reminds us of Blue Moon’s wartime setting – this is an America that wanted to laugh, wanted to cry, and wanted the guy to get the girl. For all Hart’s genius, it's just not what the people want. Regard and love seem to have deserted him.
The events of Blue Moon unfold solely in this one location, which works in the film’s favour. It allows for an incredibly deep exploration of desperation, the creative mind, and what it is to be loved. The acting is very strong – Qualley is especially excellent in one scene where she tells the eager/enamoured Hart about a confusing college fling – and Robert Kaplow’s screenplay and dialogue take us on a smooth, perfectly-paced tour around Sardi’s smoky bar and Lorenz’s ‘cigarette heart’.
It is one night, one location, and brings the imagined to life: it imagines Hart’s feelings on Oklahoma!’s opening night and was inspired by letters exchanged between Hart and Elizabeth. It is its own moment in time – it feels impossibly sad but still chooses not to be overly melancholic. It allows us to simply exist with him for a little while, unobserved, and swirl the bitter dregs of bourbon shots in solidarity. In the film’s final moments, the camera slowly zooms away from the scene, and although we do know how Hart’s life ends, it’s as if we’re just stepping back from this captured moment – that’s all for tonight.
Blue Moon is in cinemas from 28th November
