Richard Linklater’s two 2025 films – released on either side of January 2026 in Australia – demonstrate a mature understanding of both beginnings and endings. Nouvelle Vague is all about the beginnings, as it documents the woolly origins of one of cinema’s most vibrant and enduring careers in the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless. Now Blue Moon is all about endings, as we see the symbolic close to the career – and quite soon after, the life – of lyricist Lorenz Hart, who penned many of the classics of the early 20th century American songbook, such as “My Funny Valentine” and the song of the title.
Hart’s long-time partner, composer Richard Rodgers, has moved on to the greener pastures of a more reliable collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein, and their new musical Oklahama!, destined to become one of Broadway’s all-time greatest hits, has just opened that very night in March of 1943. Of course, this also functions as a beginning for Rodgers, reminding us that endings and beginnings often clash, and leave someone behind as a casualty.
Linklater has become adept at analysing moments of change in our popular culture, and if the sum total of these films encapsulates the veteran director’s own spot on the continuum between beginnings and endings, he’s a lot closer to a Godard than a Hart. Linklater was once saddled with the reputation that he made similar sorts of films that were dressed in new clothing, even though he’s spent the last 35 years experimenting. Nouvelle Vague and Blue Moon are definitive proof that Linklater goes about films differently depending on the goals of each film.
And while Blue Moon may be the more staid of the two in terms of its more contained production design – it all takes place inside one high-end Manhattan bar, Sardi’s, and can’t fully duck the notion that it is “just” a filmed play – that’s a thematically appropriate choice in terms of what the director is saying here. It makes an exceptional contrast with the showier Vague, reminding us that neither has Linklater reached a stage where he just wants to wow us with technique. Linklater’s maturity comes in the form of a thoughtful and agonising character study of a genuine musical genius, also a stubborn snob and alcoholic who couldn’t adapt to the changes around him.
Hart (Ethan Hawke) has been cattily decrying the bombastic Oklahoma! from a seat in the balcony, to a companion who may not love the show but also doesn’t love Hart’s envious belittling of it. He excuses himself at intermission for a drink, which he believes he’s only meaning metaphorically, as he’s given the Sardi’s bartender, Eddie (Bobby Cannavale), strict instructions not to serve him. Of course, the customer is always right, and Eddie can only try for so long to fulfill his promise to that earlier version of Hart.
Once the show across the street finishes up, Sardi’s will fill up with its creatives and well-wishers, but for now it’s just Hart and Eddie. As much as Hart is on about the shortcomings of Oklahoma!, he’s also on about a radiant 20-year-old student with whom he believes he has both an emotional and physical relationship – or this could just be another one of Lorenz Hart’s tall tales.
When we see the statuesque Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley) enter the bar – with Qualley playing 20 even though she’s 31 – we think it’s probably the latter. Any love felt by Hart is likely reciprocated only in a friendly manner, as Hart is 47 years old, short, with his hair combed over, and possibly gay. Plus there’s the fact that Elizabeth immediately starts telling him about the result of her pursuit of the boy she actually fancies, which didn’t go as planned either. Everybody loves somebody who doesn’t love them back, and when Hart and Eddie were sharing their favourite Casablanca lines a few minutes earlier, they agreed that “Nobody every loved me that much” took the cake.
Rodgers (Andrew Scott) and an adoring entourage do ultimately arrive, and the tension between them is clear – though it’s not because Rodgers feels guilty or that he shortchanged Hart. In fact, Rodgers is offering Hart work on a new show, a revival with new songs. It’s a bone thrown to demonstrate that he still values the collaboration that made them both famous, even though Hart’s alcoholism and toxic personality would seem to have killed any possibility of future work together. But Hart can’t get out of his own way in undercutting Rodgers’ new triumph with Hammerstein, and as he gets more drinks into his evening, we know that it isn’t that Hart didn’t have a chance. It’s that he had many chances and frittered them away, including this very night.
Hawke perfectly captures this man’s charm, intellect, and ultimate boorishness. He’s a fool not because he isn’t as good as he thinks he is. He’s exactly that good. He’s a fool because he can’t compromise his art even a little bit for commercial purposes, nor pass up either a drink or a withering retort. The history of creative endeavours is littered with Lorenz Harts, but that doesn’t make the specific details of this one any less wrenching or ultimately heartbreaking. You wish for this man to properly adapt, even though you know he won’t and you know he probably hasn’t earned it on a karma level.
At this bar there is a pianist (Jonah Lees) who scores the proceedings with little snippets of the Rodgers and Hart catalogue. It’s not entirely clear whether this is supposed to be literal diegetic music heard by the characters, and at the very least it’s just a choice by Linklater to drape more prestige over his handsome film. We can’t know for sure because Hart doesn’t comment on the everpresent soundtrack of his greatest hits. But there’s an interesting cutting quality to the choice, because the music itself is what Rodgers contributed to their collaboration, while Hart was responsible “only” for the lyrics. A delivery boy, bringing flowers for Rodgers before his arrival, does remember some of the words that Hart wrote, but it’s clear that these are ephemeral and will one day be forgotten in a way the music won’t be. Just like Lorenz Hart.
Blue Moon opens today in cinemas.