Parting ways from the better-known partner in a showbiz duo is a dangerous endeavor. Larry David experienced it. Likewise Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this humorous and deeply sorrowful small-scale drama from writer Robert Kaplow and helmer the director Richard Linklater narrates the almost agonizing tale of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with campy brilliance, an dreadful hairpiece and fake smallness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is frequently digitally shrunk in height – but is also at times shot positioned in an hidden depression to stare up wistfully at taller characters, confronting Hart's height issue as actor José Ferrer once played the petite artist Toulouse-Lautrec.
Layered Persona and Themes
Hawke gets large, cynical chuckles with the character's witty comments on the subtle queer themes of the film Casablanca and the overly optimistic theater production he’s just been to see, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he acidly calls it Okla-gay. The orientation of Lorenz Hart is complicated: this movie skillfully juxtaposes his homosexuality with the straight persona fabricated for him in the 1948 stage show Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney portraying Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of dual attraction from Hart's correspondence to his protégée: young Yale student and aspiring set designer Weiland, played here with carefree youthful femininity by Margaret Qualley.
As part of the famous New York theater songwriting team with musician Richard Rodgers, Hart was responsible for unparalleled tunes like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But exasperated with Hart’s alcoholism, unreliability and depressive outbursts, Rodgers severed ties with him and partnered with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to create Oklahoma! and then a multitude of theater and film hits.
Psychological Complexity
The movie envisions the severely despondent Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s first-night New York audience in the year 1943, observing with jealous anguish as the production unfolds, loathing its bland sentimentality, hating the exclamation point at the conclusion of the name, but heartsinkingly aware of how devastatingly successful it is. He understands a success when he watches it – and feels himself descending into defeat.
Even before the break, Hart sadly slips away and heads to the pub at the establishment Sardi's where the balance of the picture unfolds, and expects the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! cast to arrive for their after-party. He realizes it is his performance responsibility to congratulate Richard Rodgers, to act as if things are fine. With polished control, Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what both are aware is the lyricist's shame; he provides a consolation to his ego in the form of a brief assignment creating additional tunes for their ongoing performance the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.
- The performer Bobby Cannavale portrays the bartender who in traditional style listens sympathetically to Hart's monologues of acerbic misery
- Patrick Kennedy portrays EB White, to whom Hart unintentionally offers the notion for his children’s book the book Stuart Little
- The actress Qualley plays the character Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Yale student with whom the movie envisions Lorenz Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in love
Lorenz Hart has previously been abandoned by Richard Rodgers. Surely the cosmos wouldn't be that brutal as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Qualley mercilessly depicts a young woman who wishes Lorenz Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can reveal her adventures with young men – as well of course the Broadway power broker who can further her career.
Performance Highlights
Hawke shows that Lorenz Hart somewhat derives spectator's delight in listening to these boys but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Weiland and the film tells us about something rarely touched on in movies about the domain of theater music or the cinema: the dreadful intersection between occupational and affectionate loss. However at one stage, Lorenz Hart is defiantly aware that what he has achieved will survive. It's a magnificent acting job from Ethan Hawke. This might become a live show – but who shall compose the numbers?
The film Blue Moon was shown at the London cinema festival; it is released on 17 October in the United States, 14 November in the Britain and on January 29 in Australia.
