MARGARET QUALLEY, ETHAN HAWKE IN BLUE MOON

Everything happens to me

Lyricist Lorenz Hart’s legendary contribution to the Great American Songbook in collaboration with composer Richard Rodgers include My Funny Valentine, The Lady Is a Tramp, Where or When, With a Song in My Heart, Isn't It Romantic?, My Heart Stood Still, Bewitched, I Didn't Know What Time It Was, Manhattan, and Blue Moon. But at the moment in 1943 that's the focus of this incredibly vivid and touching film portrait, that marriage was on the rocks and Hart was soon to die of pneumonia, a victim of alcoholism. Here he is, in Richard Linklater's film in a performance by Ethan Hawke as Hart drinking and monologuing at Sardi's famous show biz night spot after Rogers' huge success collaborating with his new lyricist Oscar Hammerstein on Oklahoma! has left him, Lorenz Hart, in the cold. It's an astonishing tour de force by Hawke and a rich, sad but brilliant portrait of a man and a moment.

Richard Linklater’s luminous, erudite drama imagines a loquacious Hart (an astonishing tour de force by Ethan Hawke) on the night of Oklahoma!’s premiere, holed up at Sardi’s and moving through various stages of grief and acceptance—and blistering wit—when faced with Broadway’s new world order.

Also featuring stellar supporting work from Andrew Scott (who won the Silver Bear for best supporting performance at the Berlinale), Margaret Qualley, and Bobby Cannavale, Blue Moon is a surprising yet entirely fitting addition to the Linklater canon: a film about the inevitable passage of time and the feeling of being left behind by those stuck in its folds, as well as the terrible inroads of alcoholism on a personal outlook and a working llife.

Hollywood Reporter review by David Rooney at the Berlinale.

Blue Moon, 100 mins., premiered at Berlin Feb. 18, 2025, showing also at several dozen other major international festivals including Sydney, Melbourne, Telluride, Toronto, the NYFF (Spotlight Series), Vancouver, Mill Valley, BFI London, Vienna and Sao Paolo. A Sony Pictures Classics release. Limited US theatrical release: Oct. 17, 2025, Bay Area Oct. 24. Metacritic rating: 78%.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.