There are few genres that the American filmmaker Richard Linklater hasn’t sunk his teeth into. He’s made romantic dramas in the form of the Before trilogy, surrealist animated films for adults such as Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, and some of the most immortal coming-of-age movies in recent memory, among them Dazed and Confused, Slacker, Boyhood and School of Rock. Blue Moon, though, is very much a minor effort in the Linklater canon. The Texan auteur’s new film – his 22nd – boasts a fine, quirky and courageous performance from Ethan Hawke, but it’s a stagey affair which at times becomes very stilted.
Hawke plays the legendary Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart, the writer of classic songs such as “Blue Moon” and “My Funny Valentine”. We meet him in 1943, his glory days long behind him: the story begins with Hart collapsing in a rainswept New York alleyway, washed up at 47 and in the final days of his life. We’re then whisked back in time by seven months to the premiere of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical Oklahoma!, a show that revolutionised musical theatre with its brash blend of song, dance and comedy. Hart is in the audience but leaves quietly. He heads to Sardi’s bar, his favourite watering hole, where he cuts a pathetic figure: he is effortlessly witty, but the more jokes he cracks with the friendly barman (Bobby Cannavale), the sadder he seems. He’s a bisexual alcoholic who likes to think of himself as “drunk on beauty”, but we quickly gather that he is deeply frustrated both professionally and romantically. His latest obsession is the beautiful young Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley), a would-be Broadway writer, but he’s far too wizened and old for her.
