Ethan Hawk shines as Lorenz Hart songs writer

In Richard Lincalter “before sunrise,” Julie Delby Celine suggests that “if there is any kind of magic in this world, he must be in an attempt to understand someone and share something.” Thirty years after Céline and Ethan Hawke’s Jesse in love, Linklater meets with Hawke for “Blue Moon”, which is a long -time collaborator to find this magic. The relevant movie seeks to understand Lorenz Hart, the great American lyrical lyrical who – alongside composer Richard Rodgers – is responsible for countless classics in the great American song book. But from the beginning, Linklater understands the inherent difficulty that comes with the capture of this single sound in all of these contracts.
“Blue Moon” opens with two violent contradictory quotes. One of them is Oscar Harristin II, who claimed that Hart was “in a state of alert, dynamic and enjoyable to be present.” The other from the legend of Cabaret Mabel Mercer, who describes it as “the most sad man I knew.” Both are true, of course, as Linklater picks up very clearly, however, he tells us that the more positive the quote comes from Hamstein, who replaced Hart as a Rodger partner and continued to create “Oklahoma!” Music that has more success from Richard found with his former collaborator.
It is located on the opening night of “Oklahoma!” In 1943, “Blue Moon” is completely done in the bar where Rodgers is scheduled to receive the lover audience and celebrate what will eventually become one of the greatest musical plays ever. Hart does not participate exactly this feeling. Throughout the night, which we are tested next to him in the actual time, the former Richard partner takes the strikes in “Oklahoma!” At any specific opportunity (most of it creates for himself).
“Am I bitter?” Bobby Canaval asks somewhat but the waiter that means. “Damn yes!” But even with a lot of bias against such a beloved American classic, Hart achieves some good points. Why, of everything, the atom is described as “high like Ain Al -Fil” in the song “Oh, oh her beautiful morning”? And why does the title need an exclamation mark? This JAB has an additional advantage of doubling as a wink for Linklate’s fans, “Everyone wants some !!, who speaks to the knowledge that pushes” Blue Moon “forward.
Through Hart, Linklater may have just found the ideal protagonist who directs his distinctive style. The writer, who is famous for “My Funny Valentine” and “The Lady Is A Tramp”, and “Blue Moon” may be known as ugly enthusiasm with his wonderful songs, but controls his excessive words that dominate here; Hart is loaded with endless jokes and vulgar jokes that escape from his fans. It is clear that Robert Cablo, who previously participated in his writing “Anna and Orson Wales” from Linklater from Linklater, made fun of this a lot of fun with this scenario, especially when he click on rumors that have been widely distributed about the sexual life of Hart.
The most attractive thing in the world, according to Hart, “half an eclipine”. That is because a whole one is an exclamation sign-“The story has already ended”-but but an electronic half penis? “Is it coming or is it going?” He asks Hart with a smile, he plays freely what people have thought about at a time when few will be severe (because the word is better). When asked directly if men prefer for women, Hart describes himself as a “sexual prize”, a person “can wander well with any of the hand.” The Gatling Gun’s approach to conversation can be a lot, and often makes the movie feel like one man who keeps supporters of support as hostage, but this is the point. For some, it was only Hart too much To be about. This is especially true for Rodgers, who is no longer able to stand close while working about his alcoholism in the best part of 25 years.
“Your work is great,” says Rodgers Hart at a rare moment as he does not try to escape from the clutches of his former partner and return to the party. “This is not the problem.” No, the problem is that Hart is very sad and more lonely – almost desperate, in fact. The endless conversation and the performances of the continuous presentation, this permanent “performance”, as Hart himself, reveals a man who drowns in insecurity without actually explaining his feelings in this way. Even the mouse visiting Hart every morning in his apartment on the nineteenth floor stopped.
Despite, or perhaps because of his pain, Hart is charming and “overwhelming” equally, a bold and atmospheric power. When his writing describes Brotog Elizabeth (Margaret, my authors), and Rayams dedicated to the attributes and metaphors for her beauty, he says when meeting her first that “it was as if she was breathing to me different air.” However, there is very little of the remaining air until anyone breathes when Hart begins to speak.
In less hands, this caricature could have been installed or even unbearable, but Ethan Hook is the theatrical in the best possible way, as he led the screen with every gesture and words without excessive in any of them. Its energy is like vibration like the choir line, like “the most attractive things in the world”, especially in the first third when we still get to know Hart before Rodgers arrive. It is in these scenes where “Blue Moon” works better – practically “lifting”, to borrow the word Hart to describe the distinctive feature of wonderful art, which pulls you from the earth in ways that approach divinity. Linklater runs almost here at the best moments of the movie, even if “Blue Moon” swings in the middle.
Once the former Hart partner arrives, endless congratulatory and excerpts of a glowing positive review that permeates their conversation, as Hart tries his best to return to Richard’s good books without leaving what he really feels about “Oklahoma!”. Andrew Scott composer is the opposite of Hart in all ways, as the husband was described in life. We are only with them one night, but there is a chemistry that lived between Scott and Hok, as if they were an old married couple, but one of them does not fully realize that the relationship has ended while the other has already moved. The comfortable familiarity and the embarrassing desire to escape coexistence, such as the two quotes in the beginning, both of which are true in inconsistent harmony. Scott was never overwhelmed by Hook in the same way that Hart was immersed in most other characters, which are based on his success and even compassion that comes in waves of the so -called “friend”.
11 years after the Linklater Award for the Silver Bear Award for “Oscar Boyhood”, Ethan Hawk may have a shot at the same level as recognition of the award for his performance here in “Blue Moon”. It is a transformation in a way that the academy loves, which makes Hook showing five feet when he is actually the towering person on Scott, not the other way around. However, it never seems smaller than what he does when he does not give “Elizabeth” that cannot be dispensed with “to give Hart the love that is very desperate. Its monologue in the third chapter is juice, and reflects the” illogical love “that Hart feels with Elizabeth’s story Special love is not required. However, Hart’s reaction, a rare moment of weak The actual itself.
Together, heck and silence are a wonderful dynamic for payment and observation, as they swept simultaneously in each other and against each other as well. The truth of all this plays in the actual time, this effect increases significantly, and it brings us together in the Maelstrom of Hart’s Bravado thanks to the magic of Hawke signature, even if it is undermined by something else, it is hardly hidden under the surface. Because even when his hands are assembled together in the elaboration, waiting to hear the next part of the wonderful Elizabeth story with full breathing, Hook Hart plays with essential sadness.
Near the end, just as things begin to finish, the text program intersects with some of its wonder Dr. Hospital, the same hospital that Hart actually ended after seven months of pneumonia. We know that this is the place where the film started, in Rainly alley, before settling in the sad room that becomes quickly.
It becomes clearer in the phrase “No one loves me a lot”, the preferred Hart line of “Casablanca”, which becomes absent from it all the time. Because here, we are watching a movie in the 1940s, which derives emotional resonance from ancient classic while we sit with knowing what will come and think about what can be; How Hart’s legacy could have surpassed what Rodgers and Hamerchtein achieved if he dealt with life differently. However, “Blue Moon” does not end in the tragedy, even if we already knew the story of Hart. Instead, we end in the middle of the story of Hart I love to tell, creating an illusion of a party – from the Hangout bar that never ends. A story without an exclamation, if you want, as Hart wanted.
But did he like this film in general, or was he just despised “Blue Moon” as he did the song that she shares its name, the song that would become known for? It is difficult to say, although it is tempting to imagine that he would have enjoyed attention and verify the validity of such work, even if he did not like every side of it. The result is magic regardless of that, the Lite Linklater seeks hardship throughout his work, because it brings us closer to understanding Hart in all its contradictory splendor, even if it does not succeed completely.
Row: B+
“Blue Moon” was first shown at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival. Sony Pictures Classics will be released in theaters later this year.
You want to remain in view of the Indiewire movie Reviews And critical ideas? Subscribe here To the newly launched newsletter, in a review of David Ehrich, in which the editor -in -chief of our main critics and the head of reviews collect the best new reviews and broadcast choices with some exclusive reflections – they are all only available to subscribers.