Blue Moon (2025)

3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

This Is Not OK.

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

A one-set, one-night story of a tormented artist, Richard Linklater's fictional drama Blue Moon is smart, witty, and exceptionally well-acted, and isn't afraid to ask tough questions about life, love, and art.

It's the night of March 31, 1943. Songwriter Lorenz "Larry" Hart (Ethan Hawke) attends the premiere of Oklahoma!, written by his longtime partner Richard Rodgers, who has teamed up with a new collaborator, Oscar Hammerstein II, to create it. Larry walks out early and heads to Sardi's, where bartender Eddie (Bobby Cannavale) has orders not to serve him any alcohol.

He waxes poetic about being in love with a 20-year-old Yale student, Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley), and excitedly awaits her arrival. He meets essayist E. B. White (Patrick Kennedy) and they discuss writing. He coaxes Eddie into fixing him a couple of drinks.

Finally, Rodgers (Andrew Scott) arrives for the afterparty, and Larry starts to congratulate him on the success of the new play, but his praise soon turns to confrontation. Even so, that's nothing compared to what happens later, when he has a private talk with Elizabeth.

Beautifully written by Robert Kaplow, whose novel was the basis for Linklater's Me and Orson Welles, Blue Moon is like a play written directly for the screen; it's based loosely on real people, but the situation is invented. Like most other Linklater films, it's deeply and wryly observant of human behavior on a small scale. It's hard not to be swept away by the glamour and the heartbreak of it all.

Hawke's performance is a milestone in his career, a total immersion with nary a crack in its surface. There's even some visual FX wizardry at work to make him appear five feet tall, and he apparently actually shaved his head, rather than wearing a bald cap. His voice and mannerisms are a complete transformation. And he captures Hart's pain, his acute awareness of his shortcomings and his reliance on wit and charm to survive.

The movie sparkles with its appreciation for the time and place, with little appearances by artists like photographer Weegee, composer Stephen Sondheim, and future film director George Roy Hill. Eddie and Larry love to quote Casablanca — then probably currently sill in theaters — to each other. (Cannavale is funny and lovable as Eddie.) And Larry inadvertently gives E.B. White an idea for his first children's book, Stuart Little.

Blue Moon is almost like a Rodgers & Hart song in itself, catchy, bubbly, and then followed by a whiff of sadness.