March 31, 1943, at Sardi’s bar, a legendary Broadway haunt.
Opening night of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!”
It’s the final chapter in the life of Rodger’s former partner, the Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart.
Directed by Richard Linklater and written by Robert Kaplow, “Blue Moon” stars Ethan Hawke as Hart, whose lyrical genius once defined the golden age of musical theater. The story unfolds, in real time, almost entirely within the confines of Sardi’s bar in New York, where he spends the evening grappling with his fading relevance, alcoholism, homosexuality and mental health struggles. At the same time, his former partner Richard Rodgers celebrates a new era of Broadway success.
The film is basically a witty yet heartbreaking monologue by Hawke directed mainly at his favorite bartender, a perfectly cast Bobby Cannavale. Always an actor of hidden depths that only occasionally come to the fore (“Training Day”, “Before the Devil Knows Your Dead” and “First Reformed” come to mind), here, he is the center of attention, and it is a tour de force performance.
With an excellent Andrew Scott as Rodgers and Margaret Qualley as Elizabeth Weiland, a young lady who fascinated Hart in the weeks before he died, Simon Delaney as Hammerstein, Cillian Sullivan as a young Stephen Sondheim, Patrick Kennedy as the writer E.B. White and John Doran as street photographer Weegee (né Ascher Fellig).
NOW SCREENING AT SELECT MOVIE THEATRES.
