Separating from the more famous partner in a performance partnership is a hazardous endeavor. Comedian Larry David did it. Likewise Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this witty and profoundly melancholic small-scale drama from scriptwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and helmer the director Richard Linklater narrates the almost agonizing tale of songwriter for Broadway the lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his split from Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with flamboyant genius, an notable toupee and simulated diminutiveness by Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally reduced in height – but is also occasionally recorded placed in an off-camera hole to stare up wistfully at more statuesque figures, addressing Hart’s vertical challenge as actor José Ferrer once played the small-statured Toulouse-Lautrec.
Layered Persona and Elements
Hawke achieves substantial, jaded humor with Hart's humorous takes on the subtle queer themes of the movie Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he recently attended, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-gay. The sexuality of Hart is complicated: this picture effectively triangulates his gayness with the non-queer character invented for him in the 1948 theater piece Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney acting as Lorenz Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of bisexuality from Hart's correspondence to his protégée: college student at Yale and aspiring set designer Weiland, played here with heedless girlishness by actress Margaret Qualley.
As part of the famous Broadway lyricist-composer pair with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was in charge of unparalleled tunes like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But exasperated with Hart's drinking problem, unreliability and melancholic episodes, Rodgers ended their partnership and partnered with Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the show Oklahoma! and then a series of live and cinematic successes.
Psychological Complexity
The movie conceives the deeply depressed Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s premiere Manhattan spectators in 1943, gazing with jealous anguish as the show proceeds, loathing its mild sappiness, abhorring the exclamation mark at the end of the title, but dishearteningly conscious of how extremely potent it is. He understands a success when he sees one – and feels himself descending into unsuccessfulness.
Prior to the interval, Hart unhappily departs and makes his way to the pub at Sardi’s where the rest of the film takes place, and waits for the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! company to arrive for their following-event gathering. He realizes it is his showbiz duty to congratulate Richard Rodgers, to act as if all is well. With smooth moderation, Andrew Scott portrays Richard Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what both are aware is the lyricist's shame; he provides a consolation to his self-esteem in the guise of a brief assignment composing fresh songs for their current production the show A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.
- The performer Bobby Cannavale acts as the barman who in traditional style listens sympathetically to Hart's monologues of acerbic misery
- Actor Patrick Kennedy acts as writer EB White, to whom Hart inadvertently provides the notion for his youth literature the book Stuart Little
- Margaret Qualley plays Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale student with whom the film envisions Lorenz Hart to be intricately and masochistically in affection
Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Rodgers. Certainly the world couldn't be that harsh as to get him jilted by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley mercilessly depicts a girl who wants Lorenz Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can confide her adventures with guys – as well of course the Broadway power broker who can promote her occupation.
Acting Excellence
Hawke reveals that Lorenz Hart to a degree enjoys spectator's delight in listening to these boys but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Weiland and the film tells us about a factor rarely touched on in films about the world of musical theatre or the cinema: the awful convergence between professional and romantic failure. Nevertheless at a certain point, Lorenz Hart is defiantly aware that what he has accomplished will persist. It's an outstanding portrayal from Hawke. This may turn into a theater production – but who will write the numbers?
The film Blue Moon screened at the London cinema festival; it is released on October 17 in the USA, the 14th of November in the Britain and on January 29 in the Australian continent.
