Andrew Scott is a marvel of a contemporary actor. From Sherlock to Fleabag to All of Us Strangers and Ripley, he burns onscreen. His darkish eyes can replicate a murderous depth or an unholy longing, or — within the case of Ripley — each. It is little surprise that Scott’s efficiency in Blue Moon earned him the Silver Bear for Finest Supporting Efficiency on the seventy fifth Berlin Worldwide Movie Pageant earlier this yr. It is only a disgrace it is for the supporting function in Richard Linklater’s newest.
The star of this unbearable biopic about American lyricist Lorenz Hart is Ethan Hawke, who’s beforehand received reward from critics for his work in Linklater films just like the Earlier than trilogy (Earlier than Dawn, Earlier than Sundown, and Earlier than Midnight) and Boyhood. Maybe Hawke deserves props for taking up the function of Hart, as this depiction isn’t just miles away from the cool however flawed males Hawke tends towards, however light-years from them. Written by Robert Kaplow, the novelist behind Me and Orson Welles, which Linklater tailored in 2008, Blue Moon oozes with maudlin sentimentality over this misplaced artist, however lacks depth.
The place Scott’s efficiency as Hart’s inventive associate, composer Richard Rodgers, is riveting in its depth and authenticity, Hawke’s efficiency is a clown present, making a mockery of a musical genius who was tragically overwhelmed by his worst impulses.
Blue Moon seems like a slipshod adaptation of a one-man off-off-off Broadway present.
Most of this film is about on March 31, 1943, the opening night time of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! on Broadway. Sulking in field seats as cowboys and farm gals sing joyfully is Hart, a middle-aged mope with a comb-over that is lengthy misplaced the warfare. Because the packed home applauds, he exits early, wanting to get to Sardi’s, the long-lasting bar the place the afterparty can be held.
There, Larry (as he is usually addressed) hopes to reconnect with Rodgers, with whom he labored for 25 years, creating such beloved songs as “The Woman Is a Tramp,” “My Humorous Valentine,” and naturally, “Blue Moon.” However Hart can see from the viewers’s rapture that Oklahoma! (“with an exclamation level,” he laments) might be the tip of his partnership with Rodgers, as Hammerstein’s lyrics are getting lots of love.
Nonetheless, earlier than that setup, Kaplow begins the film with Hart’s finish. Drunk, drenched, and dying in a darkish, wet alley in New York Metropolis, Hart crumbles subsequent to a dumpster, pathetic and alone. This picture hangs over the whole lot of the movie like a storm cloud, making it troublesome to seek out the humor in Hart’s determined makes an attempt at attraction and dialog.
For an unbearable first act, he blathers resolutely to a beleaguered bartender (Bobby Cannavale), an keen pianist (Jonah Lees), and a affected person patron (Patrick Kennedy). Kaplow dumps biographical backstory into these exchanges, so not realizing a lot about Hart is not a hindrance. However for all these particulars, Blue Moon is most taken with three issues: Hart was drunk, homosexual, and brief.
Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater make a queer clown of Lorenz Hart.
Whereas historians right this moment regard Hart as queer, he wasn’t public about his sexual orientation in life. But Kaplow writes him slinging homosexual jokes that make use of slurs and gleefully calling himself a “cocksucker” to the dismayed straight bartender. When pressed on whether or not he likes boys or women, Larry expresses that as a lyricist, he is “omnisexual,” discovering magnificence in males, ladies, and horses as a result of it helps his artwork. So right here we’re in 2025, conflating homosexuality and bestiality in a movie meant to resurrect a tortured artist, displaying his agony and genius.
As Linklater did with Jack Black in Bernie, he casts a straight American film star to play a homosexual antihero, and the result’s a caricature much less refined than something hanging on the partitions of Sardi’s. Even earlier than Larry begins ingesting, Hawke commits to a bounciness that is buffoonish. His efficiency is enjoying a budget seats, with arched eyebrows and an endlessly winking angle that is higher suited to Hollywood Squares. Making this extra ridiculous are the lengths to which Linklater goes to get throughout that Hart was brief, 5 ft tall at most.
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The Sardi’s set is constructed in order that Cannavale completely towers over Hawke, who, at 5 ft 10 inches tall, is himself dwarfed by the furnishings round him. Seated on the bar, he strains to achieve the ledge for a shot glass. Huge pictures get even sillier, recalling the extent to which Peter Jackson went to make hobbits believably wee subsequent to Gandalf. Maybe this visible impact was meant to replicate how Hart’s bodily stature could have fed into his feeling small earlier than others he admired. However it appears ludicrous.
Margaret Qualley exudes old-school magnificence in Blue Moon.
Fortunately, after an aching stretch of Larry clowning round to an almost empty bar, different characters present up who refuse to be “extras” — as Larry snidely writes off the bartender. Amongst them is Margaret Qualley, enjoying a Yale artwork pupil named Elizabeth Weiland, who’s as free-spirited as she is glamorous. She is Larry’s protégé and present fixation. Earlier than her arrival, he rants about her magnificence and brilliance as if she not solely hung the moon, however created it complete fabric. However this too feeds right into a tedious trope, through which a homosexual man idolizes a stunning, daring girl in a means that’s objectifying, even when not sexual.
Regardless of his loud, earnest pining for Elizabeth, nobody — not even she — believes him. As an alternative, it appears he envies her as he envies Richard — as somebody stunning and gifted who is simple to like.
Blue Moon is so steeped in Larry’s self-loathing that he denounces its title track, at the same time as others reward it. He lies, sneaks, and steals to attain even the slightest adoration from others, be they a flower supply boy or the idolized Elizabeth. And on this desperation, Hawke’s efficiency may evoke Jon Lovitz’s dated Harvey Fierstein impersonation, with the screeching catchphrase, “I simply wanna be cherished, is that so mistaken!?”
To Qualley’s credit score, she shoulders the function of this dream woman effectively, bringing a deeper internal life to Elizabeth by a cringe-inducing monologue a few sexual exploit gone comically mistaken. On this scene, a minimum of, Linklater and Kaplow make Elizabeth greater than a great for his or her needy hero to fawn over. As she enters Sardi’s, along with her comes a special tone, a extra grounded efficiency fashion that makes Hawke’s over-the-top capering all of the extra jarring.
Andrew Scott is one of the best a part of Blue Moon.
Lastly, in the end, the Oklahoma! contingent arrives, and with their glitz and pleasure, they sweep away the maudlin clouds of Larry’s monologuing. Sardi’s is swinging. Rodgers (Scott) and Oscar Hammerstein (Simon Delaney) are the toast of New York! And Larry is attempting and failing to be a great sport.
Positive, when he first arrived on the bar he was spitting bile about how lame this Broadway musical is, however now he is all reward. But from the second Richard locks eyes on Larry, one thing tender and genuinely tragic takes root in Blue Moon.
Richard is well mannered however guarded as Larry begins to chatter at him, talking of how they must do a present collectively about comedic cannibals. Whereas Larry is basically hustling for his very livelihood, well-meaning glad-handers interject to bathe reward on Richard. To them, Larry is virtually invisible.
Scott switches focus from the drowning man to the smiling followers repeatedly with a hanging eloquence that means Richard has accomplished this dance with Larry many, many instances earlier than. Even now, as their partnership appears at its finish, he is shielding him from embarrassment, protecting and pained by the necessity to.
Because the afterparty drags on, Larry pushes Richard an increasing number of, scary him right into a confrontation about who they have been collectively as a inventive partnership, how far they’ve come, and what might be subsequent. However the place Larry is misplaced up to now, Richard sees a future that strikes past him. Amid the frustration and endurance Scott brings into these achingly public heart-to-hearts, which develop messier with every reconnection, he additionally brings in heartbreak. As he is publicly ingesting himself to dying, Larry may joke that everybody acts like they’re eulogizing him prematurely. However Scott performs Richard as if he can see it isn’t so untimely, as a result of the one one that may cease this downward spiral has been sneaking pictures of whiskey all night time lengthy.
Scenes the place Larry’s loves — be they platonic or romantic — problem him are when Blue Moon works. The capering of this clown collides with characters aching and stylish who do not buy his act, and in that Linklater scratches on the profound. All Larry desires is to be seen and cherished, not as he’s however as he needs he might be. He spends monumental, exhausting vitality attempting to persuade good-looking younger males, attractive younger ladies, and his closest pal of this facade, and that’s maybe his best flaw. There’s a bittersweet and exquisite tragedy in that, however with all of the buffoonery, Blue Moon will not let this heartbreaking thread shine.
Blue Moon was reviewed out of the 2025 Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant. It opens in restricted launch on Oct. 17, earlier than going huge Oct. 24.
