In March 1943, as Broadway prepares to crown a new classic, one of its architects is quietly coming undone.
Blue Moon, Richard Linklater’s Golden Globe-nominated chamber drama, unfolds over a single evening at Sardi’s, the famous New York theatre haunt where deals are made, careers are toasted – and sometimes, where they end. The film centres on Lorenz Hart, the brilliant lyricist whose partnership with Richard Rodgers helped define the sound of American musical theatre, and who now finds himself watching from the sidelines as Rodgers moves on without him.
Ethan Hawke plays Hart. This is not the tragic genius of myth, but something more recognisable and more painful: a man who knows he is losing ground, but who cannot stop living in the hope that wit might hold back irrelevance. As Rodgers’ Oklahoma! opens across town – a moment that will mark the beginning of a new era – Hart remains at the bar, trapped between memory and embarrassment.
Linklater, whose career has been built on attentive listening and the drama of conversation (Before Sunrise, Boyhood), directs with characteristic patience. The camera lingers on glances, pauses and half-finished thoughts. Nothing explodes. Instead, the tension accumulates through Hart cannot bring himself to say.
Andrew Scott’s Rodgers is all controlled warmth and professional composure. Margaret Qualley and Bobby Cannavale round out the cast, providing texture and counterpoint without ever shifting the film’s centre of gravity away from Hawke’s devastating performance.
What Blue Moon understands – and treats with unusual generosity – is that cultural history is full of figures who don’t quite fit the narrative of progress. Hart is not eclipsed because he lacks talent, but because time has changed its appetite. The film resists the temptation to turn this into a cautionary tale or a morality play. Instead, it sits with the discomfort of creative obsolescence, with the awkwardness of being celebrated for who you were rather than who you are.
Blue Moon is available to buy or rent on digital from 27 January.
