We’re firmly into Awards Season at this point, and over the course of the remaining weeks of 2025, theatres will be inundated with prestige fare in hopes of garnering hardware. The most blatant bait, as I’ve mentioned many a time in this space, is what I call “Actor Showcase” films, movies that specifically highlight a singular lead performer, intended to sway voters for a Best Actor or Best Actress nomination. Once you notice them, you can’t help but see how patently obvious the tactic is, but that doesn’t mean that the picture itself is bad. You just have to take it with the proverbial salt, knowing that the recognition is a motivator, sometimes the only one.
The first salvo that I’ve taken in this season is Blue Moon, directed by Richard Linklater. I’m a fan of his work, and I especially love it when he leaves Texas. I appreciate his love affair with his home state, but sometimes it borders on fetishization, so whenever he expands his horizons, I’m intrigued. He’s got two projects coming out this fall dealing with significant figures in entertainment history: November’s Nouvelle Vague and this. I’ll definitely be interested to see what comes next, because as Actor Showcases go, this is pretty strong.
Our hopeful here is Ethan Hawke playing Lorenz Hart, a brilliant and prolific songwriter who was the former partner of Richard Rodgers before the latter teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein, creating the preeminent songwriting duo in the history of the American stage. Before there was “Rodgers and Hammerstein,” there was “Rodgers and Hart,” creating classic musicals like A Connecticut Yankee, Babes in Arms, and The Boys from Syracuse. However, a combination of time, industry changes, and his own vices ended their collaboration, and Hart has been rendered as something of an historical footnote. This film serves as Linklater and Hawke’s chance to give Hart one last curtain call, allowing the disgruntled genius to command the room one more time.
All but the first scene of the movie takes place on March 31, 1943, the night that Oklahoma!, the first musical for Rodgers and Hammerstein, opened on Broadway. Hart watches the show from box seats, but it’s clear that he loathes what he’s seeing, so he leaves early and heads over to Sardi’s, the most famous bar in New York’s theatre district, known for its trademark wall of celebrity caricatures. Despite being an alcoholic and previously telling bartender Eddie (Bobby Cannavale) not to serve him, Hart insists on a drink, and eventually Eddie relents. Sardi’s is rather empty at the moment, just a few customers and a piano player, but they all know “Larry” well, and indulge him as he rants, raves, tells jokes, and waxes philosophical about his career, including his hatred for his most commercially successful song, the one that gives the film its title.
For a solid 15 minutes, Hawke riffs and chews scenery like a sumptuous buffet, airing grievances about life, love, and loss while also demanding your attention every step of the way and bombarding you with his infectious charm. As Cannavale does yeoman’s work as the straight man teeing up the next topic for a monologue, you can’t help but hang onto Hawke’s every word, to the point where I genuinely wondered if this was a glorified one-man show. There are some trite moments, like some asides with E.B. White (Patrick Kennedy) that lead to a somewhat lame suggestion that Hart offhandedly came up with the idea for Stuart Little, but for the most part, it’s kind of refreshing to see a flamboyant curmudgeon get center stage. It also doesn’t hurt that this version of Hart finds Oklahoma! to be just as hokey and banal as I do.
Once we’ve hit the 20-minute mark, however, it becomes clear that Hawke needs an equal to bounce off of. Cannavale is certainly capable, but he’s not given a lot of material to work with. Thankfully, salvation arrives in the forms of Andrew Scott and Margaret Qualley. The latter plays an ingenue and theatre student named Elizabeth, with whom Hart has an infatuation. Sadly, if you’ve ever been “friend-zoned,” you know exactly how their subplot will play out. Scott, meanwhile, plays Rodgers in his moment of triumph, as Oklahoma! opens to rave reviews, and he basks in the glow of his admirers once the after-party crowds into Sardi’s.
Both supporting actors give great nuanced performances, particularly Scott, who was awarded the Silver Bear for his role when the flick debuted at the Berlin Film Festival in February. The dynamic he shares with Hawke is amazing, with Scott playing Rodgers as the man who got everything he ever wanted because he was willing to adapt, play the long game, and give audiences what they want, even if what they want is total bullshit. He takes pity on Hart, who’s too proud and set in his ways to do anything mainstream anymore. The scenes where Hart desperately tries to pitch Rodgers on an epic musical idea he has while Rodgers just humors him, guiding him back to some more grounded work writing a few new numbers for a revival of A Connecticut Yankee are both astounding and heartbreaking. Rodgers wants his friend to get better, but also sets firm boundaries and guidelines for their continued association, ones he knows Hart will never be able to respect or live up to. It’s ironic that in a film designed to showcase Hawke’s performance as a man left behind by his industry, arguably the best overall performance comes from the side character who, for lack of better term, outgrew him. That said, the devastation on Hawke’s face at every pushback is palpable, and that alone is worthy of awards consideration before we even hear his line deliveries.
Outside of this tragicomic display, there are two other elements to note, one positive, one not so much. On the plus side, the makeup job done on Hawke is pretty spectacular. Honestly, when I first saw the trailer for this picture, it took me a minute to register that it was in fact Ethan Hawke, because the character’s voice and mannerisms, combined with the hair and makeup, momentarily tricked me into thinking it was a version of Martin Short who cussed a lot.
On the minus side, however, there’s a bit of a meta fault that has to be acknowledged. Sardi’s is expertly recreated as a set for the film, a credit to the design team, but that’s also a big problem given the themes at play here. You see, rather than just rent out Sardi’s and film there, the movie was shot in Dublin. Now, why does that matter? Well, I’ve spent the last year-plus struggling for work in this industry, along with thousands of others, because studios and production companies have opted to leave the major hubs of Los Angeles and New York to take advantages of tax credits overseas. You can argue part of this was simply convenience for Linklater, as he had just wrapped Nouvelle Vague in Paris, but given who this movie is about, this just feels like bad form. This entire story is about someone who lost their foothold in the business of show, which was his lifeblood. To then produce that story away from the city where so many others are in the same boat is, at best, tone deaf. I’m not saying it would have been easy to film in Sardi’s itself, but if anyone has the clout to make it happen, it’s Richard Linklater. And even if he couldn’t use the actual location, why not just build the set on a soundstage in Brooklyn? If this were a work of pure fiction, it wouldn’t be so glaring, but since we are talking about a real person who lost it all, it just feels wrong, particularly when you consider the state of the entertainment industry as a whole at the moment.
Still, that’s just a few points docked from the overall score. Yes, this is naked Oscar bait, but it’s very well made and superbly performed. The “For Your Consideration” campaigns are already out in force for Hawke, and there’s an outside shot that Scott will hear his name called a few times. In the end, this does play more as a tribute to a flawed but brilliant forgotten artist rather than just pissing into the wind for the sake of a grump. As a lifelong grump myself, I can certainly appreciate it, even if it does unintentionally prove just how tenuous mine and all the other dreamers’ positions are in this craft we love so dearly.
Grade: A-
Join the conversation in the comments below! What film should I review next? Does Ethan Hawke deserve the nomination he’s fishing for? What’s your favorite Rodgers and Hammerstein musical? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) as well as Bluesky, subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!
I Actually Paid To See This 