🔗 Share this article Blue Moon Analysis: Ethan Hawke Delivers in Richard Linklater's Heartbreaking Showbiz Parting Tale Breaking up from the better-known partner in a showbiz double act is a dangerous affair. Comedian Larry David experienced it. The same for Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this humorous and profoundly melancholic small-scale drama from screenwriter Robert Kaplow and director the director Richard Linklater recounts the almost agonizing story of musical theater lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his split from Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with campy brilliance, an unspeakable combover and fake smallness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally reduced in size – but is also sometimes filmed placed in an off-camera hole to gaze upward sadly at more statuesque figures, confronting Hart's height issue as José Ferrer previously portrayed the petite artist Toulouse-Lautrec. Multifaceted Role and Elements Hawke earns big, world-weary laughs with Hart's humorous takes on the subtle queer themes of the classic Casablanca and the excessively cheerful theater production he just watched, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he bitingly labels it Okla-queer. The sexuality of Hart is complex: this picture skillfully juxtaposes his gayness with the heterosexual image created for him in the 1948 stage show the production Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney acting as Lorenz Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of bisexuality from the lyricist's writings to his protege: youthful Yale attendee and budding theater artist Weiland, portrayed in this film with carefree youthful femininity by actress Margaret Qualley. Being a member of the renowned New York theater lyricist-composer pair with composer Rodgers, Hart was in charge of incomparable songs like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But frustrated by Hart's drinking problem, undependability and depressive outbursts, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and joined forces with Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the show Oklahoma! and then a series of stage and screen smashes. Psychological Complexity The picture conceives the severely despondent Lorenz Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s premiere New York audience in 1943, observing with covetous misery as the production unfolds, hating its mild sappiness, hating the exclamation mark at the conclusion of the name, but dishearteningly conscious of how devastatingly successful it is. He realizes a smash when he sees one – and senses himself falling into defeat. Prior to the break, Hart miserably ducks out and makes his way to the pub at the establishment Sardi's where the rest of the film unfolds, and expects the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! company to appear for their post-show celebration. He is aware it is his performance responsibility to congratulate Rodgers, to pretend all is well. With suave restraint, Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what both are aware is the lyricist's shame; he offers a sop to his pride in the form of a short-term gig writing new numbers for their existing show A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain. Bobby Cannavale acts as the barkeeper who in standard fashion attends empathetically to the character's soliloquies of bitter despondency Actor Patrick Kennedy portrays EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart accidentally gives the idea for his kids' story the book Stuart Little Margaret Qualley portrays Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Ivy League pupil with whom the film envisions Lorenz Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in love Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Rodgers. Undoubtedly the universe can’t be so cruel as to get him jilted by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley mercilessly depicts a girl who wishes Lorenz Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can disclose her exploits with young men – as well of course the Broadway power broker who can further her career. Standout Roles Hawke reveals that Hart somewhat derives spectator's delight in hearing about these young men but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Elizabeth Weiland and the movie reveals to us something seldom addressed in films about the world of musical theatre or the cinema: the terrible overlap between professional and romantic failure. Yet at a certain point, Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has achieved will persist. It’s a terrific performance from Hawke. This could be a theater production – but who would create the songs? Blue Moon was shown at the London film festival; it is out on 17 October in the US, November 14 in the Britain and on 29 January in Australia.