Blue Moon (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

PopEntertainment
Oct 24
4 min read

Updated: 13 hours ago

BLUE MOON (2025)

Starring Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Scott, Jonah Lees, Rifkin Simon Delaney, Cillian Sullivan, Patrick Kennedy, John Doran, Anne Brogan, Giles Surridge, Brian Briggs, Caitríona Ennis, Elaine O'Dwyer, Aisling O'Mara, David Rawle, Ray Weafer, Ian Dillon and Daniel Mick Ryan.

Screenplay by Robert Kaplow.

Directed by Richard Linklater.

Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. 100 minutes. Rated R.

Screened at the 2025 Philadelphia Film Festival.

Theatrical composer Richard Rodgers is best remembered for his collaborations with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II for such classic musicals as Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music. While they made some great music in their time, sometimes overlooked is Rodgers’ over twenty years of earlier collaborations with Lorenz Hart. Rodgers and Hart had their own series of hit musicals such as A Connecticut Yankee, Jumbo, On Your Toes, Babes in Arms and Pal Joey. Some classic standard songs by the pair include "Isn't It Romantic?," "Blue Moon," "Where or When," "My Funny Valentine," "The Lady Is a Tramp," "Falling in Love with Love,” "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" and "I Could Write a Book."

Blue Moon is a bittersweet look at one of the final points in their collaboration, where Rodgers appeared to be moving towards Hammerstein, mere months before Hart’s relatively early death.

Specifically, the film takes place almost completely in the legendary Broadway bar Sardi’s on the opening night of Oklahoma!, on March 31, 1943. Hart had decided he did not want to do the lyrics to the musical – it was too sappy and too on the nose for the cynical comic wordsmith. However, he only had to see the opening to know two things – that it was a horrible play that he was glad that he did not work on, and that it would become a huge hit that would probably make him less vital to Rodgers. Because obviously they were pulling in two different directions.

Therefore, as was his wont, Hart left the debut and went to the bar. He made some vague attempts to stay sober – because his drinking was another issue he was having with Rodgers – but soon enough he sneaking drink after drink.

Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon isn’t just a biopic – it’s a bruised love letter to the lyricist who gave us so many musical standards and then got left behind when the music changed keys. The film traps Hart (Ethan Hawke) on a single, smoky evening at Sardi’s, where the ghosts of his past and the ache of his present swirl like gin in a highball glass.

Hawke, in one of his most layered performances, plays Hart as a man who is equal parts wit and wound. He’s the guy who can quote Casablanca and E.B. White in the same breath, then flirt with a flower delivery boy while pining for a Yale coed less than half his age. It’s messy, magnetic, and deeply human. Hawke doesn’t just act – he inhabits Hart’s heartbreak, his self-sabotage, and his desperate need to be loved, or at least remembered.

Yet, for all the sadness that is inherent in Hart, the man was at the same time wonderfully humorous. His catty takedowns of Oklahoma! for anyone who would listen are marvelously entertaining, as is much of the rest of his smart and jaded patter.

Linklater, ever the maestro of time and talk, crafts the film like a cabaret of confession.

The setting rarely shifts from the bar, but the emotional terrain is vast. Conversations with bartender Eddie (Bobby Cannavale), pianist Morty (Jonah Lees), and a cameo from Andrew Scott’s Richard Rodgers crackle with humor, tension and tenderness. It’s like Before Sunset met Amadeus and decided to get drunk together.

The cinematography by Shane F. Kelly plays with forced perspective to emphasize Hart’s physical and emotional smallness – a risky move that mostly works, even if it occasionally distracts. Graham Reynolds’ score is a smoky swirl of nostalgia, perfectly underscoring Hart’s unraveling.

But the real magic is in the dialogue. Robert Kaplow’s script is a masterclass in melancholy wit. Hart’s lines sting and sing, revealing a man who’s drowning in brilliance and booze.

The film opens on chyrons of two dueling historical quotes by contemporaries about Hart.

Oscar Hammerstein II: "Hart was alert and dynamic and fun to be around."

Mabel Mercer: "He was the saddest man I ever knew."

These distinct and contradictory sides of Hart just makes him more relatable and sympathetic. He was a genius with some huge demons following him around, a man for whom success and fame turned out to not be enough. As Hawke said in a recent interview with NPR, “We’re watching a human being die of heartbreak in 90 minutes.” And you feel every minute of it.

Blue Moon is a tragicomic triumph – a portrait of a genius undone by love, legacy, and the cruel march of time. It’s not just a movie. It’s a requiem in rhymes.

Jay S. Jacobs