Blue Moon (2025)

Rated R and exclusively for dialogue.  There's suggestive dialogue.  There are some sexual encounter stories.  Nothing too vulgar, but not exactly clean either.  This is more along the lines of swearing and drinking over the course of a moderately short film compared to some of the faire we receieved with other Oscar nominations.  There's also implications of adultery.  Also, a character dies from alcoholism. 

DIRECTOR:  Richard Linklater

Once I knew that it was Richard Linklater, everything made sense.

I have mixed feelings about Linklater.  There are times where I think that he is sublime.  Then there are times where he seems to handicap himself under the guise of the quintessential indie director.  It's not that I ever dislike Linklater.  It's just that these movies tend to be more intellectual than vulnerable.  That might be a little unfair.  He cut his teeth on this kind of filmmaking and he's always been embraced by it.  I don't deny that part of me finds this kind of filmmaking charming.  For example, I mostly like the Before trilogy.  There's something really punk rock about the whole thing.  But do I have fun with these movies?  I can't say that I really do.  

I'm also going to confess something that I find to be quite rude of me.  I don't love Ethan Hawke.  I don't hate Ethan Hawke, by any stretch of the imagination.  This is extremely hurtful and i don't want to be hurtful, but I always look at Ethan Hawke and am always aware that he is acting.  I show this video on Stanislavski and the Method to my performing arts students.   There's a clip from Before Sunset where Ethan Hawke is going into one of his longer monologues.  And it's very good.  But Hawke's performances rarely feel lived in.  If anything, they feel quite performative.  It's funny because the video clearly disagrees with me.  

So when I found out that Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke were going to reunite for a film where Hawke is going to spend the majority of the film monologuing, I wasn't surprised by what I saw.  The funny thing is that I found this movie more annoying before I knew that Richard Linklater directed it.  My first line is no lie.  There's something comforting knowing that Richard Linklater is pulling this card.  Blue Moon, as a whole, feels like a play.  Heck, it feels more like a play than the other Linklater films that use the same format.  A lot of that comes from the fact that this is a bottle story.  Lorenz Hart, one of Richard Rodgers's collaborators, is wildly jealous of Oscar Hammerstein and the duo's work on Oklahoma!  As he laments this travesty, it becomes quickly clear that this is a sad man looking down the barrel of a career closing.  He's forced to deal with his own obscelecence and that calls for an embrace of his own alcoholism.  

To be fair, Oklahoma! does kind of suck.  I know that's not supposed to be my take on this film.  We're supposed to immediately understand that Hart is just a sad, small man losing his time in the sun and that's completely communicated throughout the film.  But from my perspective, I was like, "Yup.  This is a dumb musical."  I know that I'm in the minority who hate this play.  It's one of those classics that I'll never really get behind.   But I also don't like Rodgers and Hammerstein, so there's that.  

The point of the whole thing is that we get a look into the sad life of one of history's forgotten.  I've been embracing this headcanon that even classics disappear.   Generations keep removing more and more things that were once considered sacred.  With the case of Hart, it's a blessing that his works still are played.  But the name of Lorenz Hart is something that has slipped through the cracks for me, someone who prides himself on being pop culture literate.  (To Hart's defense, I always considered music to be my weakest obsession.) 

Ethan Hawke's Hart is meant to be obnoxious.  I mentioned that I don't necessarily love Ethan Hawke's acting and I'm going to say something paradoxical and a little bit mean.  Hawke is up for Best Actor this year for this performance and I kind of get why.  I think that this is the best thing that Ethan Hawke has ever done.  The part that doesn't mean to be catty is that it isn't the most impressive thing ever.  Say what you will about Hawke's Hart, it is borderline line just a gay stereotype.  The film establishes that Lorenz Hart wasn't so much homosexual as much as he was open to any relationship.  The term that was used in the film sounded dated, so he may be pansexual or he might be something else.  But the thing that I'm concerned about is that we've seen this archetype before.  I don't know how Lorenz Hart talked in real life.  For all I know, Hawke's performance is dead-on perfect.  For all I know, Hawke captured every mannerism available.  But when it comes to looking for a Best Actor performance, I don't know if he did anything that difficult.  I honestly feel like I could take the script and deliver a similar performance if it didn't feel so regressive.

I don't know if I've been completely explicit on how I didn't hate this.  My wife, she hated this.  I think she mentioned that this might be one of her least favorite movies that she's watched for the Oscars.  I don't think that.  We're both anti-biopic when it comes to Oscar season.  There are too many and they tend to tread the same ground in an attempt to gain accolades.  But on the grand scope of biopics, this is the kind of biopic that I kind of like.  I don't like when we get a rehash of a celebrity's whole life.  Those stories tend to get repetitive.  Instead, I like when a biopic highlights an important (or, in this case, average) day for the person and we glean what we can by how they react to these circumstances.  With Blue Moon, I get that the premiere of Oklahoma! might be important for Richard Rodgers.  But for Lorenz Hart, this is a day that probably mirrors a fairly regular event for Hart.  Yeah, Rodgers and Hammerstein's big success probably hits harder than some things, but the movie implies that Hart is this catty about most things.  That opening to his character, where he and Eddie discuss the best and worst parts about Casablanca kind of gives us insight into how Hart views the world.

Casablanca is a movie he adores.  The amount of passion that he speaks about this film is telling.  But he can't even really enjoy the film.  Even something that he adores, he can't help but see that he wasn't somehow involved in it.  His critique is how he would have altered lines to make it suit more of his tastes.  But here's the thing about Casablanca.  Lots of people have criticized it.  Some would even argue that it doesn't really deserve its prestigious reputation.  But the amount of nitpickiness that Hart throws into a movie that doesn't really harm the film in any way is more damning of Hart's own personality than it is of the film itself.  The faults that he has with the film are innocuous.  If anything, some of those lines are beloved.  That's almost the point of it all.  As much as I also hate Oklahoma!, it is a beloved piece of work.  While Hart sees his criticism as proof of his elite sensibilities, it's more a commentary that there's something human in art that he is missing.  Yeah, I probably have more in common with Hart than I care to admit.  But the fact that Hart only sees Oklahoma! as something that morons can appreciate makes him a bit of a monster.  Add to that is the notion that he lies about it so he can get ahead.  The movie is him groveling to this man whom he's insulting for the majority of the film behind his back.

This movie was inspired by the letters that Hart sent to Elizabeth Weiland, who is played by Margaret Qualley.  I get the vibe that this whole relationship was added to make Hart moderately sympathetic.  We get, from moment one, that she's never into him.  Really, the narrative is more along the line is about whether she even considers him a friend or is just using him for social promotion.  It's a bit depressing, which I always appreciate.  But I don't know if it is a key component to the story.  Sure, the film is based on those letters.  But his relationship with Weiland kind of feels like an afterthought to the film.  Maybe we get a little something in terms of character because, as observant as Hart is about the minutiae of art, he can't apply that critical analysis to his own life.  He knows when lines ring false, but he can't even see that this gorgeous young woman is using him for advancement.  It's a bummer and I wish it was more woven into the main story more.  But that also might be the truth of Lorenz Hart.

I just don't see the overall importance of it all.  That's so unfair on my part because not every movie needs to be important.  Instead, I can't help but feel like I watched something clever instead of genius.  The "why" of it all seems so small that I'm left a little disappointed.  I'm glad I watched it.  I think it's good.  I just don't really see the greatness of it all.