Relevance and love don\u2019t slam a door in your face. They just stop thinking about you. <\/p>\n
This idea is at the core of Richard Linklater<\/a>\u2019s excellent \u201cBlue Moon,\u201d a writer\u2019s yin to the director\u2019s yang of his also-upcoming \u201cNouvelle Vague<\/a>.\u201d Wherein that film is about the art of the director via the making of Jean Luc-Godard\u2019s \u201cBreathless,\u201d this one captures the heart of the writer through one of the last nights in the life of Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke), who was once one of the most acclaimed Broadway songwriters on the scene before fame and passion stopped returning his calls. He\u2019s now the drunk at the end of the bar, the guy who gets there first and leaves last, and the one who can barely hide the pain behind his non-stop commentary on film, Broadway, and everything else around him. Working from a script by Robert Kaplow, Linklater has crafted one of his finest dramedies, a consistently fascinating exploration of the frailty of the artist, buoyed by one of Ethan Hawke\u2019s most remarkable performances.<\/p>\n Both Hawke and Linklater have been fascinated by artistry throughout their careers, from Richard making \u201cMe and Orson Welles\u201d to Ethan leading \u201cBorn to Be Blue\u201d (about Chet Baker). Reuniting with the star of his \u201cBefore\u201d movies and \u201cBoyhood,\u201d Linklater casts his friend as the cynical half of Rodgers and Hart, a pair of Broadway composers who wrote timeless numbers like \u201cThe Lady is a Tramp,\u201d \u201cMy Funny Valentine,\u201d and the title track. Rodgers wrote the tunes; Hart took the lyrics. And Larry can\u2019t stand the lyrics on the opening night of Dick\u2019s new show, a little production called Oklahoma!. He bails before the curtain call on March 31, 1943, making his way to Sardi\u2019s to start the party early. He holds intellectual court with a bartender named Eddie (Bobby Cannavale<\/a>) and a pianist he nicknames Knuckles (Jonah Lees), complaining about parts of \u201cCasablanca\u201d he doesn\u2019t like while also repeating his favorite line from that classic: \u201cNobody ever loved me that much.\u201d<\/p>\n The first, long scene that\u2019s basically just a rolling conversation between Hart, the bartender, and the piano player is an absolute gem. From the very beginning, Hawke is doing something remarkable, conveying a dizzying blend of both intellect and anxiety. He is smart enough to see how life is passing him by. As he points out, despite its cornpone lyrics and that awful exclamation point, Oklahoma! is going to be a huge hit. It will run for generations, and Rodgers (Andrew Scott<\/a>) will leave him behind to work exclusively with Oscar Hammerstein (Simon Delaney). But Hawke doesn\u2019t play him as a sad-sack loser, despite his diminutive size. Hart was actually 4\u201910\u201d and Linklater makes the decision to play that through forced perspective that, admittedly, can sometimes be distracting even as it adds to Hart\u2019s insecurity. <\/p>\n He cracks jokes, smiles, and even inspires columnist E.B. White (Patrick Kennedy) to write a children\u2019s classic. The pain is largely underneath, in the quiet moments, in the asides, in the glances where Hawke\u2019s performance hums. And it\u2019s in how much we believe in both Hart\u2019s self-destructive behavior and his undeniable intelligence. Few actors can believably play witty like Ethan Hawke, who convinces us he\u2019s not just reciting lines but responding in every scene with all this character has left: his way with words.<\/p>\n