🔗 Share this article Blue Moon Film Review: Ethan Hawke's Performance Excels in Richard Linklater's Heartbreaking Broadway Breakup Drama Separating from the better-known collaborator in a performance duo is a hazardous endeavor. Comedian Larry David experienced it. So did Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this witty and deeply sorrowful chamber piece from screenwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater narrates the almost agonizing tale of songwriter for Broadway the lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with campy brilliance, an notable toupee and simulated diminutiveness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally reduced in height – but is also occasionally shot placed in an off-camera hole to gaze upward sadly at heightened personas, confronting Hart’s vertical challenge as José Ferrer in the past acted the small-statured Toulouse-Lautrec. Layered Persona and Elements Hawke gets substantial, jaded humor with Hart's humorous takes on the concealed homosexuality of the film Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat stage show he just watched, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he bitingly labels it Okla-gay. The orientation of Lorenz Hart is complex: this movie effectively triangulates his homosexuality with the straight persona fabricated for him in the 1948 theater piece the musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney acting as Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of bisexual tendency from the lyricist's writings to his protégée: young Yale student and budding theater artist the character Elizabeth Weiland, played here with uninhibited maidenly charm by Margaret Qualley. As a component of the legendary musical theater songwriting team with composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was in charge of matchless numbers like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But annoyed at the lyricist's addiction, undependability and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and partnered with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to create the show Oklahoma! and then a raft of theater and film hits. Emotional Depth The film envisions the deeply depressed Hart in Oklahoma!’s premiere New York audience in the year 1943, observing with envious despair as the performance continues, despising its bland sentimentality, hating the punctuation mark at the end of the title, but heartsinkingly aware of how devastatingly successful it is. He understands a smash when he watches it – and senses himself falling into unsuccessfulness. Even before the interval, Hart sadly slips away and makes his way to the bar at Sardi’s where the balance of the picture takes place, and waits for the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! troupe to show up for their after-party. He is aware it is his performance responsibility to praise Richard Rodgers, to pretend all is well. With smooth moderation, Andrew Scott acts as Richard Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what both are aware is the lyricist's shame; he provides a consolation to his ego in the appearance of a temporary job writing new numbers for their existing show the show A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation. The performer Bobby Cannavale plays the barkeeper who in conventional manner hears compassionately to the character's soliloquies of vinegary despair Patrick Kennedy portrays writer EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart inadvertently provides the notion for his youth literature the novel Stuart Little Margaret Qualley acts as the character Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale attendee with whom the picture envisions Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in love Hart has already been jilted by Rodgers. Certainly the cosmos wouldn't be that brutal as to cause him to be spurned by Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a young woman who wishes Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can confide her exploits with guys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can promote her occupation. Performance Highlights Hawke reveals that Lorenz Hart somewhat derives observational satisfaction in listening to these boys but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Elizabeth Weiland and the picture informs us of an aspect rarely touched on in movies about the world of musical theatre or the movies: the awful convergence between career and love defeat. However at a certain point, Lorenz Hart is defiantly aware that what he has achieved will survive. It's a magnificent acting job from Hawke. This might become a theater production – but who would create the songs? The film Blue Moon was shown at the London movie festival; it is available on the 17th of October in the US, November 14 in the United Kingdom and on January 29 in the land down under.