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 mirror a murderous depth or an unholy longing, or — within the case of Ripley — each. It is little marvel that Scott’s efficiency in Blue Moon earned him the Silver Bear for Finest Supporting Efficiency on the seventy fifth Berlin Worldwide Movie Competition earlier this yr. It is only a disgrace it is for the supporting position 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 position 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 artistic companion, 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 looks like a careless adaptation of a one-man off-off-off Broadway present.
Most of this film is about on March 31, 1943, the opening evening 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 struggle. Because the packed home applauds, he exits early, desperate to get to Sardi’s, the long-lasting bar the place the afterparty might be held.
There, Larry (as he is typically addressed) hopes to reconnect with Rodgers, with whom he labored for 25 years, creating such beloved songs as “The Girl 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) could possibly 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 everything of the movie like a storm cloud, making it tough to search out the humor in Hart’s determined makes an attempt at allure 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 figuring out a lot about Hart is not a hindrance. However for all these particulars, Blue Moon is most enthusiastic about three issues: Hart was drunk, homosexual, and brief.
Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater make a queer clown of Lorenz Hart.
Whereas historians immediately 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 ladies, Larry expresses that as a lyricist, he is “omnisexual,” discovering magnificence in males, girls, 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 consuming, Hawke commits to a bounciness that is buffoonish. His efficiency is taking part in a budget seats, with arched eyebrows and an endlessly winking perspective 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 succeed in the ledge for a shot glass. Broad 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 mirror how Hart’s bodily stature could have fed into his feeling small earlier than others he admired. However it seems 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, taking part in a Yale artwork scholar 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 entire material. However this too feeds right into a tedious trope, wherein a homosexual man idolizes a stunning, daring lady in a method 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 lovely and proficient who is simple to like.
Blue Moon is so steeped in Larry’s self-loathing that he denounces its title tune, at the same time as others reward it. He lies, sneaks, and steals to realize 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 improper!?”
To Qualley’s credit score, she shoulders the position of this dream woman effectively, bringing a deeper interior life to Elizabeth by means of a cringe-inducing monologue a couple of sexual exploit gone comically improper. On this scene, at the very least, Linklater and Kaplow make Elizabeth greater than a really perfect for his or her needy hero to fawn over. As she enters Sardi’s, together with her comes a special tone, a extra grounded efficiency type that makes Hawke’s over-the-top capering all of the extra jarring.
Andrew Scott is the most effective 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 an excellent sport.
Certain, 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 should do a present collectively about comedic cannibals. Whereas Larry is actually 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 placing eloquence that means Richard has performed 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 increasingly more, upsetting him right into a confrontation about who they have been collectively as a artistic partnership, how far they’ve come, and what could possibly 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 consuming himself to demise, 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 who may cease this downward spiral has been sneaking pictures of whiskey all evening 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 chic who do not buy his act, and in that Linklater scratches on the profound. All Larry needs is to be seen and cherished, not as he’s however as he needs he could possibly be. He spends huge, exhausting power attempting to persuade good-looking younger males, beautiful younger girls, and his closest good friend of this facade, and that’s maybe his biggest flaw. There’s a bittersweet and delightful 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 Competition. It opens in restricted launch on Oct. 17, earlier than going broad Oct. 24.
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