by Cris Mora-Villa, Contributing Writer
Blue Moon follows down-on-his-luck lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) on the opening night of the Broadway musical Oklahoma! as he avoids reckoning with his professional and personal shortcomings in the face of his longtime collaborator Richard Rodgers’ (Andrew Scott) burgeoning success. If Richard Linklater’s other 2025 release, Nouvelle Vague, centers around the start of someone’s artistic lifespan, Blue Moon sits near the end point of that trajectory. Hart would die from pneumonia in November of 1943. Oklahoma! would premier in March of that year and become one of the biggest hits to ever grace the stage. I wouldn’t know anything beyond that, as I’ve never seen the production, but Blue Moon isn’t asking the audience to be familiar with Oklahoma!. We’re fine to reference Oklahoma! as a cultural touchstone precisely because its presence is solely meant to weigh on Hart’s shoulders, not the viewers’. Hart does not care for Oklahoma!, but you wouldn’t be privy to that opinion depending on who is in his immediate company.
The film is an incredibly talkative affair, a symptom Hart is mostly responsible for. The sheer brevity of dialogue spewing from Hawke is a feat in itself. Any personality that the film possesses comes from its script and Hawke’s effervescent performance. How effectively pleasing these aspects are to watch will vary from person to person. I was riveted for the entirety of the runtime in both categories. Hawke is operating in an entirely new mode that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen him do before. Hart’s onscreen presence goes beyond descriptors like camp or melodrama. There’s a ghostly jitter to his physicality that makes him an exhausting person to be around, yet still charming in his own solemn way. Call it a risk-laden performance if you must, but it’s without question one of the best leading performances I’ve seen all year. Supporting Hawke, as well as the rest of the cast, is a dynamite script. Novelist Robert Kaplow swings for the fences with this one. He spares no expense, making Hart as verbose as can possibly be, in turn earning his lyricist occupation. Countering Hart is the rest of the cast, who do well in bouncing off his insults and one-liners to create a jazzy repartee. In this department, it is Scott’s Dick Rodgers who brings out the film’s brutality.
Oklahoma! was co-written by famed duo Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein (Simon Delaney). This would mark their first time collaborating on a project, and it was a monumental success. Hart is what some might call, a two-faced pundit when discussing anything having to do with Oklahoma!. In the face of the general public who can’t stop themselves from laying a bevy of adoration at Rodgers and Hammerstein’s feet, Hart relays pleasantries. Away from those faces, he pulls no punches in lambasting Oklahoma! for what he perceives as a fraudulent and unchallenging perspective of America’s true nature. Hart is allowed the grace to have his opinion on Oklahoma!, but it is to some extent motivated by envy. Both he and Rodgers know this, but it frankly doesn’t matter to Rodgers.
Rodgers wears his heart on his sleeve, and it’s reflected in his work with Hammerstein. Scott’s performance is a testament to where his character is coming from, and he plays this beautifully with minimal screen time. He moves completely absent of any pretentious nihilism or unprofessionalism that he would have been surrounded in working with Hart. Their dynamic eventually leads to some of the most devastating conversation-ending lines on Rodgers’ part. There is also no malice coming from his end of the partnership — quite the opposite in fact. Rodgers has simply reached his limit, and this is the choice Hart is powerless to stop. A recurring theme throughout the film is Hart’s symbiotic relationship with alcohol. In a movie with a slightly more fleshed out plot, this is the anchor that keeps him trapped beneath the water. By 1943, Hart’s career had spanned a quarter century and earned endless amounts of praise from his contemporaries. His ego has no problem basking in this, but that may as well be a band aid for a man crushed under the weight of a future that awaits him. Hart foresees that regardless of everything he and Rodgers have done together, he is but a footnote in what Rodgers will go on to do with Hammerstein.
I have a lot of love for what Linklater has done in looking at Lorenz Hart as an auteur and a genius in his own time. Blue Moon, at its core, is a story about an artist set amidst a cultural changing of the tides. It opens an aperture into a moment in time that feels especially foreign to me personally, but is rife with an artistic outlook towards what comprised the cultural norms of said time.
Rating: High Side of Liked It
Blue Moon is currently playing in theaters
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