Final Rating: 4/5
Blue Moon begins much in the same way that Citizen Kane began 84 years ago, with the death of an important man and his biographical details being given to us by the news. We meet Lorenz Hart, stumbling down a dark alleyway before falling down and dying in a puddle at the age of 48, while a radio broadcast tells us he was the writer of such songs like My Funny Valentine, The Lady Is a Tramp and the titular song of the film, Blue Moon. His partnership with Richard Rodgers would have been known as one of the greatest song writing partnerships in American history if he wasn’t eclipsed by his former partners future collaborations with Oscar Hammerstein II.
Blue Moon is the second film directed by Richard Linklater to be released in 2025, with Nouvelle Vague (read our review HERE) representing the other side of the hang out film coin that has defined his career. Blue Moon takes place six months before the fateful opening sequence of the film, on the night that the Broadway show Oklahoma! had its world premiere in 1943.
Ethan Hawke plays Larry Hart, a short man who is an alcoholic that is struggling to stay away from booze as he chain smokes cigars and is the type of person who is so chatty that he will have a conversation with himself if there is no one around to listen. After spending the previous twenty years in a writing partnership with Dick Rodgers (Andrew Scott), he must stand on the sidelines as his former pianist has joined forces with Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney) to create one of the single most popular musicals of all time in Oklahoma!
Hart leaves the performance early complaining about what drivel with poor lyrics the show is and heads out to Sardi’s a bar, which will be hosting the afterparty for the newly formed Rodgers and Hammerstein duo. The film essentially becomes a one set movie for the rest of the run time as Hart vacillates between raging against his former colleagues show and his undying love for a twenty year old college student named Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley).
Hart plops himself on a barstool and proceeds to use every adjective, verb and noun under the sun to describe his infatuation and love for Elizabeth, a prodigy he has taken under his wing and whom he hopes that when he confesses his love to her, she will reciprocate. Despite talking the ear off of the bartender (Bobby Cannavale) and in-house pianist (Jonah Lees), he manages to rope in a customer sitting in a booth that just so happens to be famed author E.B. White (Patrick Kennedy).
The film is incredibly dense with word play that would get tiring and repetitive (and quite possibly creepy with a 47 year old man professing his love for a 20 year old nonstop), but in the mouth of Hawke, it instead is witty repartee. Hawke, no stranger to Linklater’s romantic oeuvre (the Before Trilogy, Boyhood) shines as he makes catty remarks about the theater and Hammerstein’s cloying lyrics contrasting with being one of the world’s foremost appreciators of beauty.
Very little happens in the movie, but the long, meandering conversations are so entertaining, it is hard not to be swept up in the story. Linklater employs mostly static shots, but occasionally wows us with some superb framing, a feat that can easily go unnoticed. The other aspect that makes the film so enjoyable is the ensemble like cast. Obviously Ethan Hawke is the lead performer and main dialogue speaker, but the chemistry that Hart has with the bartender, pianist, White (and other assorted staff members) in a most of the first half of the film before Elizabeth shows up makes you wish for the entire film just to be spent watching Hart ramble on as he tries to sneak in drinks.
When the after party begins and we first meet Rodgers, then the romantic interest Elizabeth, the pacing does fall off a bit, even if their conversations are still enjoyable. Qualley, normally the highlight of any film she is in either doesn’t have enough to do or isn’t charming enough to convince us that she is the object of every man’s desires. It is an odd thing to say considering her immense beauty and normally charming screen persona, but the 31 year old doesn’t quite feel like a fresh faced 20 year old college student who doesn’t have much worldly experience.
Blue Moon, and Hart as a character, essentially is a 100-minute length version of the classic Simpsons episode known for the Choo-Choo-Choose You bit where you can see the exact moment Ralph Wiggum gets his heart broken in half. Larry can’t be trusted with booze, no one is interested in coming to his own after party, the young woman he is madly in love with is ignoring all the flares he has thrown at her and his former partner is sick and tired of working with him and despite throwing him a bone to restage a classic show of theirs (A Connecticut Yankee), has no time for him.
The film is flawed, but for fans of Linklater’s lowkey hangout movies (Dazed and Confused, the Before Trilogy, and his latest Nouvelle Vague), this movie will be highly enjoyable. Hawke gives an Oscar-nomination worthy performance with the spit fire delivery that mimics his real life persona. For fans of Broadway history, there are plenty of gems and digs that will have viewers howling with laughter, and there even is a fun little Easter egg of a character cameo at one point. It won’t go down as Linklater’s best film, but it continues to show why he is such an interesting filmmaker.
Blue Moon was seen during the 2025 Vancouver International Film Festival.
