Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B-
Editing: B

Lorenz Hart, the lyricist who was composer Richard Rogers’s professional partner for 24 years, was about five feet tall. So this was a big sticking point for me with Blue Moon, in which 5’10” Ethan Hawke was cast to play the part. This is a film directed by Richard Linklater, which by definition means it’s a low budget film, and really none of the ways in which Hawke is made to look like a small man look real or authentic. It’s a constant distraction. Are there really no talented short actors who could have been cast? Where’s Joe Pesci when you need him? Being way too old now, I guess. And too Italian-American. Lorenz Hart was Jewish.

They accomplished the physical transformation, reportedly, with “old stagecraft” techniques, including camera angles and forced-perspective similar to how they made the Hobbits look smaller in the Lord of the Rings films. At least those films also had spectacular special effects to distract from when these camera angles might otherwise be noticeable. The real issue with Hawke, however, is that he still has the proportions of a much taller man. When you see his hands, or even his head, in the same frame as those of another character, they look strangely large for how small a man he was supposed to be.

I really found all of this difficult to get past, making Blue Moon one of the most distractible films of Richard Linklater’s career. It’s also very much like a stage play, having been written by Robert Kaplow, whose only previous screenplay credit is the 2008 film Me and Orson Welles. There have been other exceptions, but this is a rare case of Linklater directing someone else’s work. And with the singular exception of an opening flashback of Hart’s death in an alley eight months later, the entirety of the film is set in a single bar, on the opening night of Rogers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!

This is a transitional moment, the opening night of Rogers and Hammrstein’s first collaboration—and, essentially, the nail in the coffin of Rogers and Hart’s collaboration. Hart did contribute five songs to one more Hammerstein musical before his death, but that was it. On this night, in this movie, Hart sits at the bar, chatting up everyone who will listen: the bartender, Eddie (Bobby Cannavale); the bar pianist and aspiring composer, Morty (Joanh Lees); the writer E.B. White (Patrick Kennedy) who happens to be sitting at a nearby table; Richard Rogers himself (Andrew Scott) once the show has ended and the cast and crew has come here for a celebration; and Hart’s biggest obsession, Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley).

Hart’s sexuality is a constant touch point in this script, because of this obsession with Elizabeth, with whom Hart spent a weekend some months ago. Given that Hart at one point literally and unironically calls himself “a cocksucker,” I suppose we could call him bisexual. Hawke does play him with well-observed nuance, giving him a subtly queer vibe that still does not take away our belief in his desire for Elizabeth. Hawke is an objectively good actor, but given that he is neither queer nor short, there are multiple distractions to his very existence in the part.

Blue Moon is getting widely positive reviews, and for the record, I did like it. I just did not find it exceptional. Even for a Richard Linklater movie—and that’s saying a lot—Hart talks too much. I can’t fathom the number of lines Hawke memorized for this, and most of the time he’s engaging even when the character is being frequently deluded. But there still came a point at which Hart yammered on for so long at that bar that I thought: all right, enough! Shut up!

Hart spends a lot of time criticizing the writing in Oklahoma!—right down to the inclusion of that exclamation point—and then, predictably, fawning over every part of it to both Rogers and Hammerstein once they actually arrive. Blue Moon gets some energy injected into it once the crowd arrives, as at least then all the talking makes sense. Until then, it’s a seemingly endless scene in a sparsely attended bar that feels a tad overwritten. Margaret Qualley feels slightly anachronistic, out of time, in this movie, but still has undeniable screen presence. Andrew Scott seems capable of feeling comfortably at home in just about any part he’s in.

It’s a solid cast, and for a movie that seems tailor made to be tedious and dull, I was never bored. I did spend some time wondering when it could go somewhere or get to a point, but this is a hallmark of Richard Linklater movies (especially ones he actually writes), with varying degrees of success. It’s possible this one is just a tad past its time. How many people going to the movies today know who Rogers and Hammerstein were, let alone what musicals they made together? And they were a far more famous duo than Rogers and Hart ever were. Perhaps that’s why the small mess of a man Lorenz Hart was gets a bit of love here. It’s too bad he’s just as forgotten as soon as this movie’s over. Like his career, though, it was pretty good while it lasted.

*To call this a towering achievement would be misleading.*

Overall: B