"Blue Moon" shows that The Richard Linklater-Ethan Hawke partnership was just getting started after the watershed "Before" trilogy wrapped up.
Just as the phenomenally talented director and actor did with "Before Sunrise," "Before Sunset" and "Before Midnight," as well as "Boyhood," "Tape" and "Waking Life," they harmonize their artistic visions for a riveting chamber drama that features almost all talk and no action.
The dialogue, performances and understated narrative carry "Blue Moon," a somber, intensely introspective look at musical songwriter Lorenz Hart at the beginning of the end of his career. Set at the opening of "Oklahoma!" the hugely successful musical that marked Hart's breaking with Richard Rodgers, who went on to forge an immortal partnership with Oscar Hammerstein, Hart is in a drunken, rambling mood, alone with a bartender and a stack of nagging what-ifs and what-might-have-beens.
Hawke brings Hart to life as a tortured artist who is being eaten alive by his own demons. He simmers with desperation to recapture a sliver of the fame and romance he once knew, channeling his obsession on Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley), a college girl trying to break into Broadway. He delves into the dark recesses of his mind in a running conversation with a half-listening bartender named Eddie (Bobby Canavale).
A tapestry of characters, including Elizabeth, Rodgers (Andrew Scott), Hammerstein (Simon Delaney) Stephen Sondheim (Cillian Sullivan) and E. B. White (Patrick Kennedy) weave their way through Hart's despair, treating him with interchanging revery, pity and bemusement, but do little to alter the runaway freight train inside of his head.
Linklater thrives on orchestrating Hawke's master class, unleashing the actor to unleash a stream of consciousness of hilarity. If Hart only set pen to paper to record his thoughts, he would have had his grand comeback in the form of a one-man show that would have been a few decades ahead of its time. He enthuses the Fellinian line of an artist who has nothing to say, but wants to say it anyway.
"Blue Moon" is a staggering film that I could rewatch again and again. Along with dalliances in horror and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Hawke continues to demonstrate his incredible range. The man is due another Oscar nomination, and this is the film to make that happen. If it doesn't, though, it will somehow fit the film's narrative all too well.
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