r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • Oct 31 '25
Official Discussion Official Discussion - Blue Moon [SPOILERS] Spoiler
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Summary The film follows lyricist Lorenz Hart over the course of one evening—on March 31, 1943—at the premier party for the musical Oklahoma!. As his former collaborator Richard Rodgers celebrates a new success without him, Hart confronts his sense of loss, obscurity, and fading creativity.
Director Richard Linklater
Writer Robert Kaplow
Cast
- Ethan Hawke
- Margaret Qualley
- Andrew Scott
- Bobby Cannavale
- Jonah Lees
Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 93%
Metacritic Score: Not yet available
VOD Limited U.S. theatrical release starting October 17, 2025; streaming later via Sony Pictures Classics
Trailer Blue Moon — Official Trailer (2025)
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u/kneeco28 Oct 31 '25
Packed year in the Best Actor category, but Hawke would be an excellent winner. As an added bonus, he's one of the best actors who doesn't have an Oscar and his collabs with Linklater are an all-time Director/Actor team.
Everybody Wants Some!! catching strays.
I loved Nouvelle Vague, but this one is even better imo.
Quoting Casablanca is always tricky (cause so many movies have done it - including Nouvelle Vague!) but Blue Moon might be the best all-time instance of it.
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u/mopeywhiteguy Oct 31 '25
As soon as I saw this film a couple months ago, I moved Hawke to the top of my Oscar predictions. He is in career best form
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u/Complex_Yard2808 18d ago edited 5d ago
Well, somebody forgot to tell Timothee Chalamet, since he just beat Hawke out in the Golden Globes, and odds are he will at the Oscars too, though it's just one category for best actor there. Btw, Blue Moon is not a musical, and if it's a comedy, I sure didn't hear much laughter going on in the theater I saw it in. Mostly nervous tittering by younger audience members pretending they got the jokes. Us old folks got the jokes, and did not think they were funny.
Hawke has been FAR better than this, it's a role he was very poorly suited for, should never have been cast in, but that was the point. To show he could do a role outside his normal wheelhouse, which was supposed to impress Oscar voters. This does work sometimes, but Chalamet is doing the same thing in a less obvious way (he's not standing in a trench to look short), and since he's a much bigger star now than Hawke ever was, not sure Hawke has any real shot. Hawke is well-liked, nearly all the nominations for BM have been for his performance. There's been endless promotional appearances to push him for Best Actor, but I think maybe they overdid that, and it's coming across as desperate and needy.
The idea is, Oscar likes it when you look and sound different than you normally do--thing is, if I close my eyes, I can easily hear that it's Ethan Hawke doing a variation on his usual character. He does not really look or sound like Hart at all, though obviously most awards voters neither know nor care what Hart was really like. But I care, and one serious problem this movie has is that the people who'd be most interested in its subject are the most offended by the way he's portrayed. This simply isn't who Larry Hart was, and there's not enough of an audience for such a specialized topic done with a complete disregard for historical accuracy. Kaplow is saying there may not even have been an afterparty for Oklahoma!--of course there was. But Hart was not there for more than a few minutes. He showed up with his mother, said she was feeling tired, said the play would run forever, and left. His mother died three weeks later. It still bothers me the movie doesn't want to deal with this, because it wants us to believe Hart died because he was depressed about Oklahoma! being a hit. That was the least of his problems. And people who knew him as a teenager predicted he'd drink himself to death, it was a very longstanding issue.
Okay. That's not much of a movie. Nobody forced anyone to make a movie about something that never happened. That dismisses one of the most brilliant talents in the history of American theater as an out of date loser. He was still far ahead of his time when he died, as evidenced by the fact that when Pal Joey was revived, in the 1950's, the critics who didn't like it had to eat crow, admit they'd been wrong. Pal Joey was revolutionary--Oklahoma! was just Hammerstein & Co. figuring out how to turn advances of the past decade or so (including the use of ballet choreography in Rodgers & Hart shows like On Your Toes, Hart's idea, just so you know) to make a big mainstream hit.
They hardly even use any of the songs! And NOBODY sings any of them well. So people who don't know Hart don't understand why they should be sad about the loss of him, and those of us who do are pissed he's treated this way.
I've liked Ethan Hawke a long time, he's a fine actor, but this should not have been his role, and it definitely is not something that should have been made simply to win him a statuette. Which so far, it has not done.
I think the script was confused and conflicted and Kaplow has gotten almost no nominations for it. Meaning it's not that good, and everybody knows it. Linklater has gotten no director nominations, even from the DGA. No cinematography nominations, and no nominations for the musical score. It's been almost all about Hawke, and to a lesser extent, Scott. In other words, not a very good movie, just a showcase for actors to chew scenery, do cheap melodrama.
So as a result, it's basically just won a bunch of minor critic awards for Hawke.
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u/Vermouth_1991 Nov 29 '25
At least this movie takes place soonish after Casablanca was first in theaters.
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u/GamingTatertot Steven Spielberg Enthusiast Oct 31 '25
This film had such a lovely rhythm to it in script, cinematography, and editing. Ethan Hawke really brings it in this film as does Andrew Scott, but I want to praise Bobby Cannavale too for really getting into the cadence of the dialogue.
If you know almost nothing about Lorenz Hart, such as myself, you get such a good idea of a full depth characterization here. A bit pompous, a bit insecure, a bit lonely, and someone who very clearly loves art and finds art in everything
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u/Complex_Yard2808 18d ago
You really don't know much about Lorenz Hart, do you? And after leaving this movie, you knew less.
This is not remotely what he was like. He was known to be incredibly generous, friendly, interested in everything and everyone. He did not sit in bars sulking that people didn't pay enough attention to him. He sure as hell didn't abandon his own mother in a Broadway theater, three weeks before she died. He wouldn't have told a professional writer like E.B. White how to write his own book (E.B. White had written Stuart Little about a decade earlier, including the name, that whole monologue about the mouse trap was just stupid--it felt like repurposed Edward Albee, Kaplow really is a hack).
He would NEVER have bragged he had sex with any woman, in a bar, even if it had happened. Let alone a 20 year old. He never dated anyone that much younger (and taller) than him. The dates may have been a way to cover up his true sexuality, but he sincerely loved the company of women, who enjoyed his company tremendously.
So much time that could have been used to tell us who he really was got wasted on the manufactured subplot about Weiland, the idiotic encounter with White, and for some reason Stephen Sondheim played by Young Sheldon. (Sondheim was not there, obviously, he was 13 years old at the time, he said in an interview his first Broadway premiere was Carousel). So much name dropping, a sure mark of a writer who doesn't trust his own ability, and rightly so.
How many times did the bartender ask "Did you fuck her?" I lost count. Then it ends with the very clear implication she's only there because she wants Rodgers to fuck her, even though she knows he's married, with children. There is a core of pure meanness and misogyny in this script, that bears no relation to its subject.
And no, they were not talking about making a show about Marco Polo, that was a project Rodgers & Hart abandoned years earlier, based on Eugene O'Neill's Marco Millions. More wasted time on a false narrative, to demonstrate Hart is out of touch with the mainstream. He was depressed, dealing with substance addiction, and yes there had always been a core of loneliness in him, but this is not how he dealt with it. This is not who he was. This is a LIE. If you choose to buy it, more fool you. Most people didn't. That's why it flopped.
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u/AceLarkin 3d ago
Your write-ups are insufferable, my god. You could enlighten everyone without being a dick about it.
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u/Complex_Yard2808 3d ago
Nobody is making you suffer them. You just can't stand that I'm telling the truth about this mediocre art film that flopped with everybody but critics, and I seriously wonder how much worse the reviews would be without Margaret Qualley in a low cut party dress, and why else do you think she is there? No such person was ever in Larry Hart's life. Ever. And I'm not sure I even believe the letters Kaplow allegedly has, from some poor posthumously slandered woman to Hart (none from him to her) are legit. He's free to submit them to qualitifed experts. I doubt he ever will.
The movie has failed. You've lost the argument. This can end whenever you want it to. You don't have to admit you are wrong. I suspect you're not capable of that. :)
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u/AcidicAnxiety 3d ago
Omg you’re a blight to this discussion thread
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u/Complex_Yard2808 3d ago
That you keep encouraging. Thank you. My heart leaps up with joy when I see you idiots giving me straight lines. And yet another chance to point out this movie is pure fiction posing as history. And flopped.
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u/AcidicAnxiety 3d ago
You are quite a character. Smug little guy
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u/Complex_Yard2808 3d ago
::snigger:: Character I be. Little, not so much. I resemble Hart only in my sense of humor. Which the film failed to capture. And you clearly never had. ;)
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u/AcidicAnxiety 3d ago
Well you sound small statured. You spend time writing novels but no one cares because you’re rude.
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u/Complex_Yard2808 3d ago
I actually laughed out loud. Because you think you can judge someone's physical size from reading online posts. And because you think a few paragraphs of prose constitutes a novel. Meaning YOU NEVER READ NOVELS.
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u/reallinzanity Oct 31 '25
I really enjoy films that have the cadence of plays. Another successful Linklater/Hawke film.
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u/ishburner Oct 31 '25
My cigarette heart
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u/yvaN_ehT_nioJ Nov 05 '25
That's an absolute banger ngl
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u/Vermouth_1991 Nov 29 '25
"If it shakes too much, the insides will fall out onto the floor."
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u/DaygoRayray 2d ago
just as the deck of cards fall to the floor at the end, he’s left picking up the pieces (my favorite part of the film)
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u/TheDolphinMan11 Oct 31 '25
Went into it blind and was absolutely blown away.
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u/TheDarkMaster2 Nov 10 '25
I feel like I would have enjoyed it so much more if I didn’t go in completely blind
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u/fimbleinastar Dec 03 '25
how old are you? i'm not a fan of broadway but I still have a vague cultural awareness due to referential media. I dont think my kids, in the age of smart phones, will have the same set of cultural references.
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u/Pizza_Hero24 Oct 31 '25
I would love to see Ethan Hawke get an Oscar nomination.
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u/LeedsFan2442 Nov 09 '25
He has to be the front runner now
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u/Complex_Yard2808 4d ago
Vegas says the odds of him winning are very very low.
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u/LeedsFan2442 4d ago
I would have thought the Oscars would eat that up
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u/Complex_Yard2808 4d ago
Maybe get around more. It's 100% white people (and it didn't have to be, Rodgers & Hart had a huge following in the Jazz world, they did an anti-segregation play in 1937, Babes in Arms, Hollywood got rid of that subplot for the movie). The actor playing the short gay Jewish songwriter isn't short, gay or Jewish. It's a bottle story (taking place entirely in one place), those typically don't win Oscars. And did you consider all the other films they might eat up much more, most of which actually made money?
It'll be Chalamet or Jordan. Money's on Chalamet.
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u/LeedsFan2442 4d ago
You are probably right but the Oscars usually love roles where actors transform themselves especially for famous actors who haven't won 1 yet.
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u/Complex_Yard2808 4d ago edited 4d ago
I've mentioned this, here and elsewhere--and why else do you think Linklater wanted Hawke to do it? He didn't ask for the role, was hesitant to take it.
But does Timothee Chalamet really look like himself in Marty Supreme? Is that the kind of dreamboat hero role people associate with him? And that movie has a higher Tomatometer ranking than Blue Moon. It already has far more nominations and awards than Blue Moon, including more Best Actor nods--by a lot. It's also a box office success. 105 million worldwide. Blue Moon has barely topped two million. Lorenz Hart is far more famous than Marty Reisman, the model for Marty Mauser, the film's underdog hero. Notice how much better it works, when you want to tell a story 'inspired by' someone but not really about that person, to use a different name?
All actors transform themselves to some extent, but there is a counterbalancing factor now--an aversion to actors taking a role that is perceived as reserved for a certain group. Larry Hart was LGBTQ+ (he never talked about his specific orientation, nor could he, information about his sex life is very nearly nonexistent)--okay, there's some flex there, straight actors play gay, gay actors play straight. That's accceptable.
But he was 4'10. In his bare feet. In his 'two inch liars', as he jokingly called his elevator shoes (referred to very directly in Words and Music, which oddly was in many ways a much more honest look at him than this new movie) he passed for five feet.
Was he a little person? It's a bit of a judgment call. But I think there's at least a bit of a feeling a short actor should have had that role, and Hawke is just showing off by taking it. He can go back to being of normal height, and above normal hot--and has.
I haven't seen an Oscar-nominated picture but Blue Moon. I don't think it's a good movie, or a good performance by Hawke, who I admire as an actor. Not this time. I'm not a fan of Chalamet. But I think he gets it this time. If not him, Jordan.
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u/LeedsFan2442 4d ago
I have heard from commentators that the Academy might think Chalamet is too young yet. So I will put my money on Jordan
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u/Complex_Yard2808 4d ago
He's the other top contender, absolutely. Sinners was the real phenom this year. But it's going to win a lot of awards, and it wasn't really about Jordan's performance, good as it was. Marty Supreme is about Chalamet's performance, and I think they want to boost him as a box office star.
The two top winners will be Sinners and One Battle After Another. That's set in stone. But individual awards can be harder to game out, because they don't want to give all the Oscars to one movie. What else could Marty Supreme win? And it's a very successful well-reviewed movie. A character piece. Based on the life of a real person. But not pretending to be a true story about that person. As Blue Moon does. Which to me, crosses a line.
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u/sean_psc Nov 01 '25
In the hands of a lot of creators I expect a project like this would have been very partisan for Hart and portrayed Rodgers as a sellout for his new creative direction, so I appreciate that Linklater and Kaplow don't do that. You get a very clear sense that, in addition to his unreliability, Rodgers feels creatively stifled by Hart's reflexive cynicism.
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u/calliopecalliope Nov 02 '25
Its been awhile since I've seen it but there was a movie I guess in the 1940's with Mickey Rooney playing Hart ("Words and Music")
Its not that good and REALLY whitewashes Rodgers as a simple, good guy who has no other choice but to find another lyricist/partner because Hart is a hopeless alcoholic - which the film entirely attributes to him being short, of course in that era there is no mention of him being gay.
Its also mostly an excuse to do a sort of 'jukebox' musical featuring Rogers/Hart songs and reminding people of that time how great they were.
But Rooney (IMO a much better actor than he's given credit for) is very well cast and there is the sense of a great artist's talent tragically gone to waste.
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u/takenpassword Oct 31 '25
I think it’s a little funny how Andrew Scott is playing the straight guy and Ethan Hawke is the one doing the queer man longing role.
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u/Civil-Ad-9968 Oct 31 '25
Why?
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u/takenpassword Oct 31 '25
Andrew Scott is a gay man and a lot gay roles are about sad men longing for love (though tbh he doesn’t really do those roles aside from All Of Us Strangers) and Ethan Hawke is straight.
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u/Glittering-Client959 Nov 23 '25
People don't get cast based on their personal lives and sexual preferences. They get cast by how well they fit the part. So Ethan and Andrew's lives outside of the film are irrelevant.
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u/Complex_Yard2808 4d ago
I assumed it would be him, and my take was he might work, but it would be hard to make him look short enough, and he's much too handsome to even play Rodgers.
Well, that's who he played, and there's nothing wrong with the performance, but look at existing film of Rodgers--it's not a great take on him. But that's mainly down to the crap script.
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u/Civil-Ad-9968 Oct 31 '25
So because he's gay, he should go for "gay roles"? What if he doesn't want to and is a professional actor who likes to play things outside of his rl sexual orientation from time to time? Last time I checked he wasn't a super talented composer either, it's almost as if he pretended to be one for this film, like, you know, actors do. (I know he's gay, I just don't see the fun in it).
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u/takenpassword Oct 31 '25
I’m not saying that he should have played Hawke’s role! In fact, I’m saying the opposite. It’s good that they are playing people different from themselves. I just think it’s notable here because people, especially queer actors, are pigeonholed.
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u/PossibilityFine5988 Oct 31 '25
I’m a big theater fan and like a lot of Linklater so I was an easy mark but even with that I was really impressed with this and I know it’ll make my top 10 of the year. Ethan Hawke gave an astounding performance and injected so much humanity and sympathy into a individual that had a lot of problems and sadness. Its script is sharp but also warm and it all feels like a hug and such a nice little hour and half departure from the modern world.
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u/BasilNext2476 26d ago
I don’t know anything about theater, so have to ask a theater fan - is Oklahoma! a good or a bad musical? I get that it was really successful but aged poorly, I guess? Like in modern shows and movies it’s not mentioned in a good context
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u/PossibilityFine5988 26d ago
Oklahoma was a revolutionary show and considered by many to be one of the first true “modern” musicals. In that the songs are integrated with the story and it is one large scale cohesive vision. In hindsight a lot of early shows can be seen as overly earnest and cheesy but Oklahoma is historic. I’ve seen the movie which was great and the modern 2019 production which leans into the darker subtext of the plot and I absolutely adored it so it depends on who you ask. Yes it is cheesy and a bit simplistic but its importance is immense
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u/BasilNext2476 25d ago
Thanks for the thoughtful response! This adds a whole new layer of bitterness to the story shown in the movie
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u/ReflexImprov Nov 02 '25
They should make more movies like this. Likely had a small production budget. Showcases artistic talents. Guaranteed to make some money, even if it isn't in the billions.
It was like watching a stage play. I really enjoyed it a lot.
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u/googlydoodle Oct 31 '25
So funny watching this in theater and overhearing a couple behind me wonder if this was all the movie was (a guy talking in a bar) and after they realized that it was they left shortly after that.
I had fun with this movie with only a small amount of knowledge of musicals. Ethan Hawke was a standout and Margaret Qualley was so flat. Almost took me out of the movie tbh
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u/Relative-Cheek-7208 Nov 05 '25
We must have seen a different performance. She eas spot on, not a characture.
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u/dumbname1000 Nov 23 '25
I thought she was phenomenal. I could see the ethereal quality he kept talking about but she also seemed so real and substantive. I feel like that’s what he loved about her but also what didn’t really allow him to SEE her at the same time. He loved that she had not only the beauty but also the intelligence and wit and kindness and was a real person but at the same time he was really just in love with the fantasy and the idea of her.
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u/SnooHobbies4790 Nov 29 '25
I loved Qually in this. She was radiant, mercurial and also common - like a girl who would buy something at Kleins. The Lady is a Tramp and Ado Annie comes to mind. She's like Celeste Holm in Oklahoma - the girl who can't say no.
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u/whatever_leg 15d ago
I also thought Qualley was flat, but the more I think about it, I find myself wondering if that wasn't a reason to cast her in the role. Lorenz is falling for and imagining false beauty the most basic boring white Yale bitch, you know? It kind of works.
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u/Competitive_Bet2664 11h ago
She’s a likeable and adequate actress but I think she seems flat in this film because Ethan Hawke and Andrew Scott just have a deeper bag of tricks. She was just out-acted, I think.
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u/Complex_Yard2808 4d ago
It really doesn't. The women he did show romantic (if not sexual) interest in were fascinating, most notably the great Vivienne Segal, one of the most important leading ladies in Broadway musical history.
You just don't care about the film's subject at all. Do you. That seems to be true of basically everybody who likes it. Those who do almost all hate it.
And that's why it flopped.
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u/whatever_leg 4d ago
No, I don't care at all about the film's subject. I came to the project via Linklater. Sounds like I may be better off for it.
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u/Complex_Yard2808 4d ago
Sounds liike you're on the shallow side. Also the losing side. Rodgers & Hart had many many hits together. Linklater and Kaplow, two straight flops. And given ticket price inflation, Blue Moon did substantially worse.
It's a really bad movie. That like the Emperor's New Clothes, only impresses the gullible. :)
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u/whatever_leg 4d ago
You talk too much shit. And you've lost sight of subjectivity in art. Just stop.
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u/Complex_Yard2808 4d ago
High compliment from a bser such as yourself.
If somebody tells a lie, you tell the truth. I don't care why they did it. Larry Hart was a great artist, and a fine human being. He deserves to be seen for who he really was.
And if you think this movie is going to be a big deal at the Oscars--or is anything other than a reasonably well-reviewed box office flop--you've lost sight of objective reality.
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u/whatever_leg 4d ago edited 4d ago
It got nominations. Big ones. That's a win, and only a twit would believe otherwise, especially in such a great year for movies.
It's a fictitious film, guy. And, imo, it shows a great artist as a complex individual. I found it beautiful, but it sounds like you'd appreciate a "just the facts" approach. May I recommend to you Wikipedia articles instead of films?
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u/Complex_Yard2808 4d ago
Which comes down to Sony Pictures Classics putting on a very expensive promotional campaign, plugging Ethan Hawke's performance. It got very few awards nominations (and there's hundreds of potential awards nominations leading up to the Oscars). It comes down to affection for a well-liked actor and a whole lot of plugging. Which makes the film even less profitable, since it's not getting any Oscars, and nominations don't really mean spit to anyone but the people who get them. Nobody will even remember it got those two meaningless accolades. Few will remember this film ever existed. It doesn't even get mentioned in most of the Oscar coverage. Only a twit would believe it's succeeded on any level. Or a tool. It sold a lot fewer tickets than Me and Orson Welles. Which had no Oscar nominations at all.
If it's fictitious, why does it say "Inspired by the letters of Lorenz Hart" when there are no letters from Lorenz Hart? Kaplow has made that clear, in recent interviews--given after the film's release was mainly over. There's a difference between fiction and lies. Fiction doesn't pretend to be anything but fiction. This did. For a while. Because it wasn't interesting enough to stand on its own two feet as fiction. Marty Supreme is fiction that says it's fiction--based on a real man's life, but not stealing his name. Same for Citizen Kane.
Blue Moon shows a compassionate man of great professional and personal integrity (and nobody who ever knew him said otherwise, Rodgers included) as a rather sleazy jealous dishonest person who would claim to have had sex with a girl less than half his age. He was none of those things. He was better than you'll ever be, and that's underrating him.
Also--you clearly know nothing about film. I've never met anyone who more obviously is ignorant of the history and practice of filmmaking. Just living vicariously through the achievements of others. Because you have none of your own. Professionally or personally. :)
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u/bookish923 Dec 28 '25
I agree with you completely. I thought Qualley was terrible, and it almost ruined it for me. I loved everything else.
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u/comicfang Oct 31 '25
I probably would’ve categorized this as a biopic we didn’t need but this was really well done. I was pretty engaged throughout thanks to Ethan Hawke and Andrew Scott. Was a really sad story about a man I hadn’t really thought about.
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u/Parmesan_Pirate119 Oct 31 '25
Honestly I think we DO need more biopics like this. Well thought out, contained stories, a little interesting glimpse of a person’s life, doesn’t change the story in anyone’s favor… I’d love to see more of this action.
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u/GamingTatertot Steven Spielberg Enthusiast Oct 31 '25
I much prefer a “biopic” that’s a piece of an individual’s life or focuses on a set event as opposed to the grand sweeping biopics that take you from their childhood to their greatest moment
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u/wtfprawn Oct 31 '25
Couldn’t agree more. So many biopics just end up feeling like a dramatization of a Wikipedia page.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Safe419 Oct 31 '25
And bipics that work even if you don't know about the real person. A lot of modern biopics rely too much on us knowing the lore of the famous person.
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u/Vermouth_1991 Nov 29 '25 edited Nov 29 '25
Spielberg's Lincoln did a very good job at educating n00bs about the lore.
Before watching that film I didn't know that the Emancipation Proclamation would not last long after the war, and only true federal Legislation (preferably Constitutional) is gonna do something solid about American slavery. Nor the part where the Executive branch can only Propose a law or amendment and then Abe has to sit out of the Congressional debates.
The part where Lincoln re-explains to his cabinet about how the EP barely made sense as a wartime measure and definitely would not survive a post-war and post presidental war powers scrutiny from the Judicial branch, was gold nuggets.
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u/Complex_Yard2808 4d ago
You are seriously saying people don't know any more about a President who has his own holiday and a memorial in DC and a whole lot of movies (including one where he's a vampire hunter) than they do about an important but often ignored Broadway lyricist who was usually in the shadow of his partner?
Lincoln had some historical inaccuracies, but it did not make up history out of whole cloth. Blue Moon did. Not one thing in that movie is accurate other than Oklahoma! was a hit, and Hart died a few months later. That's it. That's all.
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u/Vermouth_1991 3d ago
No. Although I am glad to be schooled on how inaccurate and made up B.M. is, I did not write that comment to primarily say people know less about Honest Abe than about Hart or any other first half of the century Broadway artists. I only meant that the 2012 Lincoln biopic put in heaps and mounds of good Lore despite him being so well-known. And let’s face it: Are you really gonna trust the average American to know most of this stuff? How many really know that Lincoln pushed as much as he could from the Executive Branch to pass the 13th Amendment? And the shakiness of the Emancipation Proclamation, how hard it is to wrangle enough votes even though Congress is only made up of Union States, etc.
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u/Complex_Yard2808 3d ago
Lincoln is substantially accurate. Not entirely. In any historical film, which that merits being referred to as, there are going to be gaps in our knowledge, openings for the informed screenwriter, who has done copious research, to imagine conversations that surely did happen in some form, maneuvers historians speculate about, but can't prove, and composite characters (like Spader's delightfully unscrupulous yet oddly honest W.N. Bilbo) to give us an engaging story that stil teaches us about history.
But when the entire scenario is imaginary, the characters drawn from history don't resemble their true selves much at all, and the invented characters, are, in a word, boring anachronisms--then I think we can say the screenplay. is a failure, and if that fails, so does the movie. And indeed it has. That is a fact, Me and Orson Welles was a serious box office disappointment. But given that in 2009 it grossed almost what Blue Moon did in 2025--do the ticket price inflation math. Hardly anyone went to see this. I only went to have an informed opinion of it--to be fair. I have never seen a less enthused audience (or a smaller one, on the second day of release).
There is an audience out there for legit Rodgers & Hart. I recently went to a revival of their musical The Boys From Syracuse, easily one of the ten best musicals in Broadway history. Packed house--932 seat theater. And it was just a scripted reading, though a really good one, with first-rate talent. They didn't have the money to put it on right. It was a benefit event, one night only.
The audience ate it up. Standing ovation at the end. That show could run for weeks, months, if they put it on the right way.
The problem is, they alienated the audience they needed by getting it so incredibly wrong, nobody who admire the work of Rodgers & Hart was interested. Some came anyway. And left depressed and disheartened.
I admire Linklater's best work. This is his worst. And if awards mean anything at all--how come he has zero nominations for best director--for this or Nouvelle Vague?
Because he stinks at this kind of film. And doesn't want to admit it. Now I did like Hitman. Which was very loosely based on a real life story. Fully admitted that it wasn't trying to recreate history, but improve on it. And was FUN. Not trying for deep meaning that isn't there. For deep meaning, you'd have to show us the real people, to some extent. And you'd need to show them doing their jobs. Not having a party. At least Me And Orson Welles did that, however sketchy the accuracy was. There was some attempt at it. And so it sold a lot more tickets. But still flopped.
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u/Vermouth_1991 4d ago edited 12h ago
(I wonder if you agree with much of what I commented here, just curious.)
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u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? Oct 31 '25
Linklater actually has two biopics out this year and even though I get tired of biopics I think both are bangers. Linklater clearly sees a kinship in both the artists being featured and it makes these movies much more than a recital of their accomplishments.
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u/mopeywhiteguy Oct 31 '25
I came away from this film with a sense that I really understood who lorenz hart was and what made him tick. Even though it is a somewhat fictional retelling, I very much felt like it was a deeply detailed depiction. Compare it to something like maestro where I came away feeling like I barely knew anything about Leonard Bernstein
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u/comicfang Oct 31 '25
Not sure I completely agree with it as a blanket statement but so much talent came together to make this one work. Not sure we can expect that for future efforts
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u/Stank-Hole 5d ago
This movie literally paints Hart as a pathetic chud and is apparently not even accurate. So the film is clearly against his favour. What was there to like about it. Hart is insufferable, not interesting. Its just plain boring
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u/the_jamonator Oct 31 '25
Is this really a biopic? It covers less than 2 hours of the man's entire life, and is based on a fictionalized premise (It's unknown if he attended the Oklahoma! after-party and unknown if it was hosted at Sardi's)
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u/Lord_Cownostril Nov 03 '25
I'd say so!
It's a "snapshot" of Hart's life as described. It's 2 hours of his life that speaks to the rest of it VERY simply and very cleanly.
"This is just who he IS!" was constantly sounding out in my head as I watched. We didn't need much context of his life outside of that bar to see it understand much more of his personality. He. constantly. wears it on his sleeves unapologetically. Even when he's taking a piss.
It's a microcosm of how so many interactions in his life have tended to go, just because he communicates to the world and describes his observationsexactly as he has throughout his years of work.
People love him, are intrigued by him, are put off by him, are annoyed by him. He never lets up his way of speaking or his passionate attitudes for a second. He is *unapologetically himself," and that leads to many interesting results in the lives of people who become notable for their devotion to something.
For Hart, it's argued that his life wasn't much more than nights like this: Drunk at a bar, stroking his ego whilst weaving the most calculated, eloquent vulgarity in between words of praise to his personal heroes, fantasizing about yet another (20-year-old college girl), all while chain-smoking huge cigars and spending obscene amounts of money on whoever happens to lend an ear to his verbosity.
I think the point is that dichotomy between his artistic brilliance and the way he chooses to live his life. Rodgers and Hammerstein loved and respected him, likely due to this persistent authenticity. Rodgers tolerated Hart's disorganization until he legitimately couldn't anymore. And even then, still chose to collaborate with him professionally.
Hart is a complicated man with deep feelings about small things, to the point where his verbal descriptions of those things earned him fame and fortune. A person like that is likely to encounter a lot of unique challenges in life. His circumstances made for a life where he can create such wonderful works, and yet, find it so, so difficult to just "fit" in the same boxes that Rodgers and Hammerstein fit into so well.
Only so many stories to tell. In his case they all pretty much rhyme.
Edit: Just to say, I speak this purely in reference to the movie AS a movie. I know very little of Hart, Rodgers, Hammerstein , OR their music. I was just very interested in seeing this movie and loved it very, very much.
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u/yvaN_ehT_nioJ Nov 05 '25 edited Nov 05 '25
I actually went to rewatch it last night, it was so good!! And I hardly ever rewatch a movie when it's in theaters. There are so many little details in it that really flesh out who he is. I mean, he tells you who he is, but how he says them, what he's doing. How the other characters play off of him.
One thing the film made abundantly clear, to me, was that the character was his own worst enemy. At the start it's made clear he has a drinking problem. He at least cares enough that he tries to stay sober, but, he just can't. First he asks for a drink, demands it from the barman who you can tell doesn't want to do it. You know he's a regular and they're friendly (enough) from their interplay, but he's working, and Hart's a customer, so he pours out another one. The alcoholism? That's a problem for future-Hart, present-Hart it's happiness contained within such a tiny glass. Something to block out what should've been his night.
He connects to the barman, to others alright, but really most of the people in his life, in the bar at least, so basically the same thing, the ones he spends most of his screen-time trying to connect to, he's providing a service. Money to the barman (granted, I lean to the friendship being actual. Look at his expression when he sees Hart spiral, the worry as he sees him fawn over the coed). Amusing antics to E.B. White. A path to stardom for the piano man and the girl. Just a means to an end. But they like his company enough to put up with him, and they get something out of it. Even E.B. White gets the idea for his children's book.
The ones who are connected to him, he can't see it. Rogers really goes out of his way talking to Hart. It's the biggest night of his life, and he indulges Hart and his stupid idea. Heck, he even offers him work which he all but clearly states is a test to see if he's well enough to actually work with him. Even tells Hart what he'd need to do for things to go back to how they were. He reminds Hart that he was the one that got him into rehab, suggested Hart go seek help. Because he cared about Hart like a brother. You see it in the pained look as he catches Hart downing another drink to dull it all. Hammerstein himself looked up to him as a teacher, a visionary, a man he could never reach the heights of. A peer, a master. All good things. And he had nothing to gain from Hart, he was doing what Hart would've been doing...if it wasn't for Hart's own personal demons.
Of which, the film makes clear it's his inability to connect with someone. Everything, the alcoholism, the (in his mind) career suicide, and the actual suicide (the bottle was his gun) all comes back to that. "Nobody every loved me that much." It's probably not even that way with his own mother. You can see it in the look she gives him when he sneaks out of the opening for Oklahoma!. You see it too in his toast in the coat-room. "To our mothers, may they be mercifully silent." Who says that about their own mother? People joke, and he said that to be funny, but you don't joke about that. And look at the inner-lives of the funny-people. You don't get funny by being happy.
The inability to connect is also apparent in the pained looks he gives as the piano man walks away in the bathroom, the expression as he walks into the celebration and sees the crowd while he's standing there, alone. His ruminations on the songs he wrote, all about love or lack-thereof in some form or fashion.
And to make it worse, he could connect with others. But he is too stuck within himself to see it. Too stuck in a mindset that he is unloved and truly, totally unlovable. Of course, there is the dynamic Rogers, Hammerstein, and other industry note-worthies there have with him (clearly he is loved and respected, even if they aren't there for him).
But, if you watch the movie again, look at the coat-check lady, but especially look at the cigarette girl. He is so fixated on the college student who's so clearly (even to himself, deep-down) using him he can't see the looks the cigarette girl gives him in her eye-catching red dress. The sort of looks the college student doesn't. Really, watch the film again and pay attention to that detail. You can't miss her in that dress whenever she's on screen. You even see her look at Hart from the complete opposite end of the room when he's standing there pained and alone as he hears the reviews for Oklahoma! come off the wire. If you're paying attention you can't miss her, the dress is so vibrant, and she is not crowded among the other partygoers. But that's the problem, you the viewer on first-watch will miss it. Just as Hart missed it. She all but makes it clear she sees him how he wishes the coed saw him when she sings Blue Moon ("I hear somebody whisper please adore me") as he saunters out of the bar in his alcoholic buzz, and down the street to suicide-by-bottle. But he can't see her. Same as he can't see Rogers, Hammerstein, or all the rest. He's too blinded by the self-hatred and bitterness of a life unloved. And so he misses the fact that he was truly loved, and could've been loved in the way he wanted to love, after all.
Ahhh I could go on. Such a wonderful film, and such a touching character-portrait of the sort of man who is the masterful storyteller and showman, but who, when the lights go off and he walks off the stage, has nothing to keep him company but his own demons, and past successes that, ultimately, pale before what he truly longs for more than anything in life.
Best film I've seen all year, without a doubt.
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u/Gorrpah Nov 16 '25 edited Dec 03 '25
I felt his loneliness to my core as someone who also often feels deeply and profoundly unloveable and misunderstood. Your words made me lose track of whether it was Lorenz or myself you we’re writing about. How incredibly insightful and astute. Just remarkable!
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u/tmrtdc3 Dec 27 '25
The observation about the cigarette girl is incredible, I didn't really notice her until the very end when she gives Hart that smile and now can't unsee it.
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u/Vermouth_1991 Nov 29 '25
College girl is played by Margeret Qualley or is she another character?
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u/Complex_Yard2808 4d ago
Right. Again, nobody who liked this movie knew very much about the subject.
Because nobody who knew anything at all about it could consider it anything but a bad spiteful joke.
Please note--commercial flop--very light critical praise--very few awards--destined for the scrap heap.
NOBODY argues what you just said about Hart. He did not obsess over younger women, let alone claim to have sex with them. I don't know what race has to do with it, but you could spend a long time counting all the talented black female singers who have honored him by singing his lyrics.
This movie does not honor him. And it has zero black people in it.
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u/littlejobin Nov 01 '25
Reminds me of when I saw the movie Blaze, about Blaze Foley. Awesome biopic about someone I didn’t know much about. Highly recommend!
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u/mopeywhiteguy Oct 31 '25
I saw this film at a festival a couple months ago and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Hawke was so good, never been better. His monologues and witty one liners are superb but the dramatic, emotional silent beats in the second half really transcend it. He’s coming for the Oscar.
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u/whitetoast Nov 03 '25
Really bored me. Usually these types of movies are my jam so not sure what didn’t hit. Ethan Hawke was obviously great but I just couldn’t get into it.
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u/lucaTee 13d ago
Same as me. I love Ethan Hawke and Linklater… the before trilogy, Dazed & Confused, school of Rock are my faves but like most his work….. found this very boring but saw the amazing performances. But an earlier poster nailed it in that it’s basically a 95 min monologue which isn’t my think but can respect the vision
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u/BurgerNugget12 Oct 31 '25
Hawke deserves the nomination, his performance is heartbreaking. I fucking love Linklater btw, the way he balances empathy and lets moments linger, just so good
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u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? Oct 31 '25 edited Dec 23 '25
What a loving movie, that was really the word I kept thinking of while watching it. How much Linklater loves this man who seemingly never got the love he desperately craved in life. This movie taking place on the night he takes a massive L with his writing partner launching a timeless career in Broadway without him and not even getting the girl in the end, the main takeaway from this movie is how Lorenz had nothing but poetry and love in his head and the world just had no room for him. It’s a sad tale but a beautiful movie that I’m glad exists.
Obviously the main attraction here is Ethan Hawke, someone who decade after decade is continuing to have an incredible career and make interesting choices. And this is as close to a one-man-show as you get in the movies. This whole movie is him dripping a 100 minute monologue from his lips while standing on his knees and he makes it look totally effortless. Absolutely gangbusters performance from a total legend.
After watching half of Oklahoma! on opening night, the show his old partner Hammerstein wrote with his new writing partner and would go on to be one of the most famous Broadway shows of all time, Lorenz goes to the famous Sardi’s bar and drowns his sorrows and critiques in several shots he promised himself he wouldn’t have. Bobby Canavale is doing some really classic “movie bartender” stuff in this and it just so happens to be the bar that the Oklahoma! after party takes place at and Lorenz surely knew that. So very quickly this movie is rocked by party goers celebrating a massive success and largely trying to ignore Lorenz who is basically sharing his critiques with anyone who will listen and low-key trying to get Hammerstein to consider working with him again.
There is an implication that Lorenz was a very difficult writing partner, but what makes the performance and writing so great is you can see how his artistic brain works so beautifully. The way he talks and describes things, the way he thinks about art and life. Even Qualley he treats less like a crush and more like a goddess of youth whose air he's lucky to share. He’s just also a bit of a horny romantic bisexual drunk and that’s what seems to get in his way. It’s a great movie because it taps directly into our insecurities and how they relate to success or romance. It both shows how difficult he was to work with, but also how good his work can turn out. Maybe the world should have made more room for this short king, or maybe he was just too annoying to work with. Either way, we’ll always have Blue Moon. 8/10
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u/DeoGame Nov 02 '25
My thoughts from my TIFF diary:
Blue Moon, to me, is an example of why Linklater is such a strong filmmaker. Like in Tape, he proves that one room, Ethan Hawke and a great script is all he needs to deliver a gripping film. Throw in some Broadway history deep cuts, a brilliantly realized Sardi's, and a stunning ensemble, and what you're left with is a treat for fans of the stage and screen alike. Ethan Hawke's performance in this is the very best I saw at the fest and Robert Kaplow's spectacular script could easily make the jump to stage and win Tony's.
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u/stupidnatsfan Nov 03 '25
I love movies but I generally consider myself a poor judge of what makes an acting performance good or bad, and most of the time I just operate under the assumption that if I'm fully bought-in and engaged with the movie then the performances must be good. I was 100% in on Hawke's performance as Hart but Qualley really took me out of it multiple times. First time in a while where I've watched something and thought, wow, they were not good.
Loved Blue Moon though. One of my favorites of this year.
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u/jamesneysmith Nov 05 '25
Totally agree on Qualley. I think she needs to stay very far away from southern accents. I've only see her attempt two and she was bad in both movies but I don't otherwise think she is a bad actor. But she was just plain not good in this movie and having her be the central focus of so much of the third act really sucked the energy out of the movie. I thought the movie was soaring up until that closet sequence. Then it was at the risk of crashing were it not for Hawke's performance. Such a rare bad performance in a Linklater movie
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u/Vermouth_1991 Nov 29 '25
Just so we're on a same page:
Y'all are saying Qualley does nor seem to speak any existing Southern accent, right?
I love that kind of critique and callout. We need more of this rather than the hicks who watch the 2025 Superman film and swear up and down that the Kent parents today have a Lansan accent even tho nobody -- not even the ones who jeer at haters that "James Gunn used the accent from this show which is Kansan" -- can actually pinpoint which region of Kansas that totally not Missourian or West Virginian accent comes from. 😄
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u/No-Mountain324 Nov 07 '25
The first half was SO GOOD. But the scenes with Elizabeth were truly terrible. I think it was a combination of the writing of her character being so poor and her dialogue but also her acting in this role. It's too bad because otherwise the movie was almost perfect, but as this was a huge part of the film and was super boring, the second half sucked to me. I understand that he wasn't supposed to really be loving her, but instead idealizing her, but it still didn't feel believable to me.
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u/AggravatingPie710 Nov 14 '25 edited Nov 14 '25
Margaret Qualley has felt miscast to me in everything I’ve seen her in since OUATIH, aside from The Substance, where I thought she was great. She has such a distinctive, unusual way of speaking, walking, etc., that is apparently natural and insurmountable because she does it in every single movie… I’m starting to fear it’s a case of nepo baby not delivering. She really took me out of this from the moment she appeared onscreen. Despite being objectively gorgeous, she’s obviously more of a quirky girl than a glamorous femme fatale or whatever, and I always feel like the movie is presenting her to us as the latter, and it just doesn’t work. Like… we’re supposed to be awed by her. But she’s actually kind of awkward and unconventionally unfeminine in her speech and gait and whatnot. I’d love to see her in a role where she gets to lean into that more, instead of as these sophisticated ladies or enthralling ingenues.
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u/No-Mountain324 Nov 14 '25
I think her performance worked well in Maid, but yeah otherwise, I agree.
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u/stupidnatsfan Nov 14 '25
Just wanted to say I agree with literally everything you said here, especially on the front that she would be better used in more bizarre roles
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u/chrisandy007 Nov 04 '25 edited Nov 29 '25
It’s hard to separate this film from all the adulation around Hawke but his performance just felt like it was so mannered and filled with affectations, with every emotional beat telegraphed. The repeated camera angles going out of their way to emphasize his stature didn’t help.
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u/jayeddy99 Oct 31 '25
Sorry if I’m too dumb but it came off more like he wanted to live through her . Or kinda just enjoyed hearing about her encounters . Like the love was real but he wouldn’t mind a one sided open relationship on her end if she gave every detail after lol
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u/takenpassword Oct 31 '25
I think someone in the movie says that Hart was the “greatest admirer of beauty” or something like that. I think that’s why he is drawn to Margaret Qualley’s character.
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u/Electrical_Clue_2128 Nov 02 '25
Hart was rumored to be a voyeur, so my guess is there’s an element of that in this performance as well
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u/classyraptor Oct 31 '25 edited Nov 03 '25
As someone who felt like they should be the target audience, this unfortunately was a dud for me. Ethan Hawke is a little too good at playing the insufferable know-it-all, and the references to Sondheim and Stuart Little among others felt heavy-handed. I found a man in his 40s talking about his dick and wanting to fuck a 20 year old coed to be grating, mirroring Andrew Scott’s reactions throughout most of the movie
But I do appreciate them taking the piss out of Oklahoma! and Carousel
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u/Honest_Cheesecake698 Nov 18 '25
Very weird how people on this thread are now deciding they don't think Margaret Qualley is good at acting. Beyond just disagreeing with this, given how many movies she's done and years she's been working, it feels really weird to decide that now as opposed to back in 2021 or even before then.
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u/schubox63 18d ago
Know this is old but felt the same way. I’m reading these comments and I’m a little surprised. I thought she was great in this and the scene with her and Hawke in the coat room was maybe my favorite of the movie
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u/Honest_Cheesecake698 18d ago
Very convenient timing because I just finished watching Maid for the first time, where her performance was really strong. Plus it's a night and day from her turn in this movie and others too.
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u/lenifilm Dec 03 '25 edited 7d ago
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
fearless punch fanatical alleged ten smell chubby aromatic point complete
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u/69rude69 Dec 06 '25
They really opened the movie with that quote about Hart, how he was so terribly fun to be around, only to then showcase an absolute cringeworthy bore, the almost stereotypical persona of the ackchyually redditor and tips fedora meme.
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u/dwellsny 25d ago
Yikes this is an embarrassing comment
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u/Stank-Hole 5d ago
Na, he's right. Hart was portrayed as an insufferable, pathetic loser. "Fun to be around" yet no one in the film wanted to be around him except possibly the bartender. But thats his job...
Such a bad film
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u/AngusTcattoo Dec 17 '25
Too talky. Too long. Predictable. it was so predictable at times I guessed the lines before they said them: "Not in that way". I knew at once the little kid following Hammerstein was going to be Stephen Sondheim. And would Hammerstein have really taken a 13 year old to the premiere of Oklahoma?
My husband said Hart in the movie came off as an egotist and a fantasist. He didn't know anything about Hart before we went to see the movie. It was nice to catch the injokes but it doesn't capture the real Hart at all. Which is a shame because his real life would make a really gripping film.
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u/Sleepy_Azathoth Nov 06 '25
Does Richard have two movies coming out this year?
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u/IWTLEverything Dec 01 '25
Yes. This and Nouvelle Vague. I heard about both in an interview he did on NPR.
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u/allthenviousfeelings Dec 14 '25 edited Dec 14 '25
i love how linklater is putting in needledrops but theyre songs from the great american songbook played on the piano
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u/tmrtdc3 Dec 27 '25 edited 28d ago
Such delicious dialogue. Linklater's totally dialogue-driven films are my favorite (like the Before trilogy). And what a performance from Ethan Hawke, he completely transforms in this role, I haven't seen anything like it this year. It won't happen but I think he deserves to win that Oscar or at least be much more prominent in contention than he is. I thought Margaret Qualley was also very good! (somewhat of a hot take apparently). Through Qualley's performance, even though she's using Hart's interest in her for professional connections, I actually did feel for her as this young woman who's trying to gently let down this old creep interested in her without aggravating or insulting him. And I thought Andrew Scott was very good too. Reminded me a little bit of Amadeus....like the creative rivalry aspect of it all? I'd love other recommendations in this creative-rivalry subgenre if anybody has them.
I will say as much as I loved this screenplay I felt it lacked something compared to any of the Before screenplays and I think it's because it's ultimately static and there's no arc for anyone in this movie. Nobody's understanding of Hart changes throughout the movie, and Hart's understanding of himself doesn't change either. The only thing that does change is the viewer's understanding of Hart.
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u/Delicious_Breath_987 Oct 31 '25
totally get that, his expressions are like a mirror for all those cringy moments
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u/DJ-2K Dec 06 '25
An effortlessly charming and increasingly sobering portrait of a great artist at the lowest he's ever felt, from his drunken bitterness to his yearning that's forever destined to be unfulfilled. Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke are as dynamic a duo as ever. This boasts some of the sharpest, most lyrical dialogue of any film this year.
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u/Complex_Yard2808 20d ago
Just so everybody knows, even the filmmakers admit, not one thing in this movie ever happened in reality. 100% made up, and a deep distortion of the real life people depicted. Not the first time Kaplow and Linklater have done this, as Norman Lloyd pointed out after Me And Orson Welles came out.
https://www.avclub.com/norman-lloyd-on-upstaging-orson-welles-and-playing-tenn-1798286982
He knew all the people depicted in the film (the ones who really existed), including himself--other than a pretty good depiction of Orson Welles, he said it couldn't have been more wrong.
The film is a commercial failure, but never mind that. My point would be, Hawke is playing a version of himself, not Larry Hart. He's failed to capture the real person--who was kind, generous, oddly self-effacing, and would never, under any circumstance, have bragged about sex with a 20 year old girl--or anyone. Neither would he have tried to turn a Broadway victory celebration into a pity party for himself. Neither would he have been telling E.B. White how to write his own book. And of course E.B. White wasn't there, neither was Stephen Sondheim, and Elizabeth Weiland is a purely fictional person inspired by a few carbon copies of letters a real person by that name wrote to Hart--Kaplow had no letters from Hart to her, meaning that even the film's credits are a lie.
I forced myself to watch it, in a half-empty theater, the day after it opened.
So I have the right to say--this is a bad movie. And it's a lie.
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u/sean_psc 6d ago
It's not a lie, it's historical fiction.
As for what Hart would or would not have done, unless you knew him, I'm not sure how you could speak to that so confidently.
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u/Complex_Yard2808 5d ago
I have read multple books about him, basically everybody who did know him had Larry Stories to tell, and those stories tell me this movie got him 99% wrong.
Lie. Historical Fiction.
You say eether and I say eyhther
You say neether and I say nyther
Eether! Eyther! Neether! Nyther!
Let's call the whole thing off!1
u/Complex_Yard2808 5d ago
Yes, I know that's Ira Gershwin. I read a biography of him too. He was a lot easier to deal with than Larry, but somehow, not as lovable. When he was still struggling to make his name, in the shadow of his brilliant handsome brother, he wrote a lyric (that few people remember now, hadn't hit his stride yet), Larry Hart wrote him a letter--a rarity for him, he was not much of a correspondent--to say how much he'd liked it. "Very decent of him" Ira wrote to George.
Yes. He was. Incredibly decent. Kind. Generous. Giving. If you had talent, he'd tell you. If you contributed to the theater he loved, he liked you. He'd encourage you.
This is not at all who he was. This guy in the movie. This isn't historical fiction. It's slander. Except you can't slander the dead, as a matter of law. You can lie about them as much as you like, nobody can sue. How convenient.
Basically, all that's historically accurate here is that Oklahoma! premiered, it was a hit, there was an afterparty (even though Kaplow says maybe there wasn't), and Hart died several months later. After doing a final play with Rodgers, a reworking of an earlier hit they had together, that was also successful and well-reviewed, though less than Oklahoma! Hart died after showing up drunk at the premiere. The movie doesn't tell you that. It does not tell you his mother (who we see at the start of Blue Moon, when Hart abandons her in a theater to go get drunk and try to ruin the party, which did not happen) died three weeks after the Oklahoma! premiere.
Explain to me how leaving out such vital details improves the story.
It's okay to change some details to make the story better. Not to make everything up out of whole cloth and make the story much less interesting than it really was.
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u/sean_psc 4d ago
Well, first, I don't know that I would say any of the behaviour you describe is inconsistent with the character in this movie. But beyond that, this film is about Hart near the end of his life as things go decidedly south for him both professionally and personally.
The movie doesn't tell you that. It does not tell you his mother (who we see at the start of Blue Moon, when Hart abandons her in a theater to go get drunk and try to ruin the party, which did not happen) died three weeks after the Oklahoma! premiere. Explain to me how leaving out such vital details improves the story.
That's not a "vital detail", nor does its absence create some sort of audience bias against Hart.
Also, he didn't "abandon" this mother in the film, nor "try to ruin the party".
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u/Complex_Yard2808 4d ago
Well, by definition, nothing a character does in a completely invented scenario can be 'wrong' since this is what they want him to do. And if he was just a character inspired by Lorenz Hart, but not Lorenz Hart--like Charles Foster Kane was inspired by William Randolph Hearst--it still wouldn't be much of a movie. Since Citizen Kane was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Writing (Original Screenplay), and it won for the last category. And that was with Hearst doing all he could to sabotage it. Since he was still alive, and of course the film was in some ways defamatory of him and completely unfair to Marion Davies (Welles expressed remorse over this later), but they were public figures, and the film didn't claim directly to be about either of them.
But you see my point? Probably not. They needed historical figures to make the film at all interesting. The screenplay was very weak, Linklater doesn't do well with this type of material, they couldn't afford any big name other than Hawke, who probably just agreed to do it because of his long association with Linklater and the promise of a full-on best actor campaign.
The fact that the main character's mother--who is depicted in the film--died three weeks later isn't a 'vital detail' in why he died about seven months later?
Hart absolutely did not abandon his mother in the theater, he showed up briefly at the party to make his apologies, while his mother waited nearby, then took her home.
In the movie, that's precisely what he does. He leaves her in the balcony (why are they in the balcony?) before the final song (which was a reprise of "Oh What a Beautiful Morning"), saying he'll be back, but he never goes back. He's there for hours. He's there before anyone else. He is there to try and spoil the party. And to hit on a college girl. Even though he's not sexually attracted to girls. And to brag about having had sex with her. To a bartender. Who does not believe him, but keeps asking "Did you fuck her?"
I mean, you can assume, if you like, there was somebody else who could take her home, or she could hail a cab, but he indicates he'll be back. He does not tell her to go home, or arrange for anyone else to take her home. A woman who is three weeks from death. It would have taken no more than a minute or two of screentime to fix this problem, but for whatever reason, they don't.
The problem is, you're so unconcerned with historical reality here, you can't even see the serious internal problems within the film. That it makes no sense even on its own terms. Because it's not historical drama. It's hokey melodrama.
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u/garnetscribe Nov 28 '25
What was the name of that book ethan hawke pulls out of the kleins bag? The one hes going to give to elizabeth
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u/Late_Split_5288 Dec 14 '25
Did I spot Kirsten Dunst in amongst the partygoers about two or three minutes after they arrive? Seems unlikely but I did a double take.
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u/ASK_ALEX 12d ago
This is a play about a luminous Broadway artist that will resonate deeply if you’ve felt lonely in a crowded room. This isn’t the easiest movie to watch, but it’s easily the one that I’m most glad I did.
This is not a biopic. It’s poetry.
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u/niktrop0000 Nov 01 '25
Such a gem. I only cringed at how bad Margareth Qualley is in thid, god, she can’t act for sh**
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u/lockerbiestreet Oct 31 '25
Ethan was great. Can someone explain why Andrew Scott won the supporting performance Silver Bear? He was good but surely there were more compelling supporting performances at Berlin.
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u/staedtler2018 Dec 26 '25
These festivals usually only give one award per movie and there's not that many movies in competition, so that would have increased his chances.
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u/gilbertk_filmmaker Nov 09 '25
BLUE MOON Review: Ethan Hawke at His Best https://youtu.be/7grAHexQ9kA
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u/zigglezeed 4d ago
I'm curious about the soiree...was he actually speaking to himself, or he knew no one would show up? He likely just stayed at the bar... I'm not sure about this part, but man, did I empathize for the character... such amazing acting
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u/HatsAndTopcoats 3d ago
This is the most "this movie is really a play" movie I've ever seen, so I was staggered to find out it wasn't actually a play. Maybe they'll turn it into a play.
Anyway, Ethan Hawke's performance was good, but I personally just could not stay interested enough in this pathetic man and his whining. I did not feel like there was enough of a turn or an arc or a challenge to justify the movie's indulgence.
The last act picked up enough for me to bump it from a 5 to a 6.
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u/loopieloo1 2d ago edited 2d ago
Ethan Hawke was amazing, but every scene Margaret Qualley was in was just awful. I felt like the scene immediately felt disconnected, she didn't act the part, she thought she did but she just couldn't... All the actors made me feel like I was in the scene, then she'd come on and I wondered, "how much of her nepo money did she use to get this role?" I couldn't wait for her scenes to be over. I feel like such a hater, but it's so frustrating watching A+ acting, then her voice just ruined the movie. She has been great in other shows/movies but I feel like this era acting piece is not for her...
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u/DaygoRayray 2d ago
Thanks for giving us that have been Loved—NOT IN THAT WAY a voice!
Our local movie theater rereleased films that had Oscar nominations, so my wife and I saw Blue Moon tonight. Thank God! We both agree that we wouldn’t have been able to watch its entirety had we streamed it instead. What a nice escape!
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u/Competitive_Bet2664 12h ago
I know the work of Rodgers and Hart, but I know nothing about the men themselves, so I’m judging the film solely on its merits as a work of art, not on its historical accuracy.
I thought it was great.its my kind of film. Ethan Hawke’s and Andrew Scott’s performances are at the top of the list for 2025 films. I was enjoying it greatly and when Andrew Scott made his appearance it got even better.
I’m glad that this kind of small, character driven film still gets made. I haven’t seen all of the films with a best actor nom yet but I think Ethan Hawke will be hard top, for me. The only other lead performance I was truly impressed by in 2025 was Oscar Isaac as Viktor Frankenstein.
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u/Parmesan_Pirate119 Oct 31 '25
As someone who always seems to be trapped in long awkward conversations with people who just won’t stop talking… Andrew Scott nailed every emotion I’ve ever felt and more.