Richard Linklater’s direction and Ethan Hawke’s acting are another perfect match in the award-winning Blue Moon, with a director who crafts his movies with understated confidence that is a masterclass in rhythm. He knows how to get the best performances out of Hawke. It is a setting where Hawke can’t escape the room or the reality of his life. The sophisticated setting perfectly transports audiences to another era in a classy, refined specialty film we see less often, providing a much-needed escape.
Though it isn’t always a light watch, set in 1943, Ethan Hawke plays songwriter Lorenz Hart, who confronts his raw emotions and reflects on his life while sitting in a bar as his former collaborator, Richard Rodgers, commemorates the opening night of his famous hit musical “Oklahoma!” (“Mazel tov, as they say in Maine,” Hawke says during a celebratory moment.) Blue Moon is structured as a one-person character study, with the entire movie set in a single room. Though stagy, it is never stiff, but rather lively despite its contained setting, thanks to the mile-a-minute, Sorkin-ian dialogue that is both exuberant and bittersweet.
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The highlight is Ethan Hawke, who works his cinematic magic, excellent as a man haunted by his past, contemplating his memories and overthinking his shortcomings with every drink at that bar. Hawke is brilliant and is slowly unraveling with every person who passes by. Hawke inhabits the tormented songwriter Lorenz Hart, allowing both his pain and his accomplishments to coexist in that room as everyone outside celebrates a musical he helped create. With every scene, Hawke peels back another layer of the tortured artist. In one affecting scene, as Hawke’s character drops a deck of playing cards, the moment distills everything Blue Moon is about: regret and the ache of what’s been lost.
Other acting performances are very good, but a highlight from the supporting performances was a radiant Margaret Qualley in her limited screen time, bringing warmth and quiet gravity to a movie anchored by Hawke. Her brief appearance lingered with me, and her presence complements Hawke’s performance.
Blue Moon has been on my mind since I watched it early last week, and it has felt like a meditation on the artistic craft and the baggage of loneliness. It’s a film about the art that endures long after the spotlight fades, after the long-running performance concludes. In an era of movie noise and loud spectacle, Blue Moon reminds arthouse viewers that conversation still carries the weight of cinematic power in merely a whisper.
Blue Moon is now playing in theaters.
