2026 Reviews – Blue Moon

🎵 Blue Moon! You saw me standing alone Without a dream in my heart. Without a love of my own 🎵 I take a punt that this movie has to do with that song, and bullseye! I like the way this movie sets up this story to indicate that Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) will die in a drunken stupor, and gives an obituary that allows the movie to inform us of who this guy is and his greatest accomplishments. But I’m getting ahead of myself 🙃 My Oscar preparations will run to a close today, with Blue Moon holding the last of the acting nominations released of Australia’s 2026. Who do you think is going to win?!

On the night of Oklahoma!’s stage premier, Hart laments how his former business parter, Richard Rogers (Andrew Scott), has created an awfully sterile stage show that he knows will be an uber success. Hart knows he’s not supposed to have a drink either, but maybe he’ll ask the barkeep to pour him one, just to look at, maybe sneaking a few through the night while no one is looking as well. Eventually, Rogers and Hammerstein (Simon Delaney) will come to the function room to celebrate, and Hart will have to navigate how to talk politely to them. But he can’t wait for the barkeep and his new bar friends to meet the gorgeous twenty-year-old he has acquainted as a mesmerizing rejuvenating muse.

There’s a lot of words, a lot of waffle. The foreshadowing and callbacks throughout this movie are obvious and trite, like Eddie (Bobby Cannavale) saying to Hart, “this is the start of a beautiful friendship”, after the pair had been talking Casablanca in the first third. And Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley) states she loves Hart “but not in that way” after Hart earlier described those exact same words as very hard to take 🙄 I wasn’t in the mood or found it annoying with how this movie’s writing is also constantly interrupting the flow of stories, particularly with Elizabeth relaying her relations with a former crush on her 20^th birthday. It’s like, shut-up Ethan Hawke – Australia’s laws just induced an internet porn ban, let Qualley cook! 🍆 Ethan Hawke is a darling of Hollywood, and mine, so I understand the Oscar nomination since this movie has him pontificating a lot, while he’s present for the entire length of the movie; but I would label it an “acknowledgement” nomination for his efforts in what I keep concluding seems to be a thin year for standouts, in my most limited research. For better work from Ethan Hawke, might I recommend First Reform? And for more absorbing biopics about struggling writers left by the wayside of the golden age, might I recommend Mank. But hey, I enjoyed it when E.B. White (Patrick Kennedy) showed up, and I recognised the name as the guy who wrote Stuart Litte; it was like getting a quiz question right 🤩 And I admire that this movie goes out of its way to make Hart so short, which I’m sure is accurate to the real-world character; and perhaps important to stamp down why he feels overlooked in life, over-exerting himself onto people to make up for it. But I also feel like some movies would just say, “stuff it”, backing in an actor without any gimmicks once decided that a talent like Ethan Hawke is their guy – I mean, X-Men certainly did it with Hugh Jackman, and Wolverine has appeared in 10 movies that way.

The dramatical heights, for me, definitely came through watching Hart interact with his former business parter Rogers – Hart does give advice that productions based on friendship are much richer than writing about lovers, and director Richard Linklater has founded spots of evidence here. Their conversations are always rushed and tensely threatened by intervention at any moment, and I love how every second means so much more to Hart, imposing his point of view, while for Rogers it’s just another stolen second away from his big hopeful party. There’s clear love between the two – an admiration and nostalgia for Hart as an old mentor, but frustrations for Hart’s wayward behaviour are still bubbling. And for Hart there’s a sense of loss he needs back, with the growing status of his former partner peaking with what will be his most awarded work. Hart can’t pretend that he doesn’t think Oklahoma! is cookie-cutter banal work all night, while Rogers is quite content if this be his crowning accomplishment (And I’ve seen the film version of Oklahoma! and considered it a straight-edged glossy product of its time, but Blue Moon suggests that it may have always been plainly inoffensive even in its heyday, at least according to Hart 😐). And there’s nothing wrong with producing a work that can appeal to every corner of the masses, simple sensibilities, while Hart would prefer the harder cynical tricks performed at the counter-culture outskirts of a politically established center. Through these conversations though, comes the purest understanding of Hart’s internal damnation, and a genuine sense of, “when did I become obsolete?” Not because Hart’s old, past my prime, or out of touch; but because the world doesn’t want what he’s selling.

I appreciate Andrew Scott’s performance with a deliberate deep voice; he’s becoming a chameleon to really enjoy. Margerat Qualley is Margaret Qualley; neither good nor bad. But Bobby Canavale doesn’t excite me. I’d rather see him in those Domain ads playing up his marriage with Rose Byrne! He actually reminds me of Brad Garrett’s Robert from Everyone Loves Raymond trying to be polished up for a revered Hollywood spotlight 😬 Maybe his presence is a contributing factor as to why this movie’s opening third and closer don’t invigorate me, but he wouldn’t be the only reason alone. It’s that, and all the huff and puff about nothing. This is Hawke and Linklater’s nineth collaboration together and if they have a particular soft spot for this guy, then they’re entitled to their vanity project about Lorenz Hart, and I did get the best sense of this guy’s importance when Oscar Hammerstein genuinely seemed to be seeking Hart’s accreditation of his value as a lyricist.

2.5