BLUE MOON (A) - Rarely will you find a movie that so earnestly and elegantly captures emotional longing -- as well as the yearning for love and acceptance -- as this endlessly clever and charming tale of the bittersweet final days of Lorenz Hart, the celebrated lyricist from a century ago.
Ethan Hawke turns in a career performance as Hart, whose alcoholism has mostly destroyed his songwriting partnership with Richard Rodgers, who has moved on to team with another lyricist, Oscar Hammerstein, and it is their Broadway opening of "Oklahoma!" that provides the setting for the film during one night at a Manhattan bar, the legendary Sardi's. Hart is the personification of glib, and Hawke unleashes one-liners and monologues as if he were in a one-man show. He amuses himself and others, although some have grown a little tired of his shtick.
Richard Linklater can do no wrong in re-creating wartime Manhattan and delving into the busy mind of the celebrated songwriter who is destined on this night to yet again lose his battle with the bottle. I'm enjoying Linklater's middle-aged swerve to the mainstream, perhaps finally realizing that he no longer is the indie auteur of classics like "Slacker," "Dazed and Confused," and "Before Sunrise." Like his 2003 romp "School of Rock" and the recent "Hit Man," "Blue Moon" lets Linklater relax a little into a rich character study that appeals to the masses. It's a return from the wilderness and the meandering of films like "Boyhood" and "Everybody Wants Some."
This is the first full screenplay by Robert Kaplow, a novelist, whose "Me and Orson Welles" was brought to the screen by Linklater in 2009. Kaplow stuffs the script with cunning wordplay and sharp insight into one man's damaged psyche. Some might find the dialogue overwhelming at times; I found it to be deft and insightful, welcoming Kaplow's challenge to keep up with it. I can't begin to do it justice with excerpted quotes. Suffice it to say that Hart's apoplexy over the exclamation point in "Oklahoma!" will warm the heart of any former copy editor or critic of modern punctuation usage.
Hawke presents Hart as a lovable loudmouth, full of empty boasts and headed for a fall (he would be dead within months, later in 1943). He is a small man and he knows it; Linklater has fun bundling Hawke into a suit that dwarfs him and engaging in camera tricks that make him appear to be the size of a boy barely able to belly up to the bar. His comb-over and cigar peg him as a Tin Pan Alley has-been, and his empty swagger seems both earned but well past its due date.
Hawke has a fine cast to bounce off of, most notably Bobby Canavale as a Jackie Gleason-like foil. John Lees provides a tinkling Greek chorus as the house piano player, a nice Jewish boy on leave from the service. A platinum-coifed Margaret Qualley swans about as Hart's college-student protege who is angling for an audience with Rodgers, eyeing the possibilities for her career (and perhaps more). She has a focus here that she has lacked in other projects.
But this is Hawke's show. He carries the first 20 minutes with a motor-mouthed monologue during which he holds court and unleashes a torrent of pithy philosophy, to the amusement of the stragglers at the bar. He briefly befriends E.B. White, the New Yorker writer who until then was nursing a drink in a booth, quiet as a mouse. (Linklater and Kaplow insist on dropping little Easter eggs into the script -- Hart will give White an idea for an iconic children's book, and Hart will have passing interactions with nobodies who will go on to be a famous songwriter and a noted movie director. Blink and you'll miss a reference to New York street photographer Weegee.)
In the end, I fell hard for the rat-a-tat dialogue and the authentic emotion of Hart pouring his heart out -- to a pretty young gal he idealizes or to a lifelong pal and writing partner whose approval he craves. What an imaginative period piece and a magical moment in time.
BONUS TRACKS
Much of the Rodgers & Hart catalog is rendered as incidental music, courtesy of the piano player in the bar, but some songs get fuller studio workouts, like "This Funny World," as interpreted by Tony Bennett:
For me, the definitive version of "Blue Moon" is by Elvis Presley from the Sun Sessions:
And our title track, courtesy of Billie Holiday:
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