Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke are up there with Martin Scorsese and De Niro, even Alfred Hitchcock and James Stewart, as certainly one of cinema’s iconic perennial pairings. From the “Earlier than” movies and “Waking Life” to “Boyhood” (which earned Hawke an Oscar nomination) and even the underseen motel-room-only DV thriller “Tape,” they’re working on an alchemy uncommon for onscreen director-actor collaborators.
Their newest undertaking collectively is “Blue Moon,” which can distract at first for the bald cap Hawke wears to play determined, boozing songwriter Lorenz Hart. However beneath that feat of film make-up magic is certainly one of Hawke’s most wistful, poignant performances, right here as the good American lyricist who was one half of Rodgers and Hart earlier than a artistic cut up.
“Blue Moon” is ready over the course of 1 night time, within the iconic New York bar Sardi’s, on the after-party for the 1943 premiere of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s stage musical “Oklahoma!” Hart’s private and skilled lives dovetail and unravel as jealousy seethes over his former artistic associate’s success, his personal sexuality will get a bit wobbly, and he bonds with a bright-spirited protégé (Margaret Qualley, who performs her character like a unhappy starlet of the Jazz Age). The forged contains Andrew Scott as Richard Rodgers, Simon Delaney as Oscar Hammerstein, Cillian Sullivan as Stephen Sondheim, and Bobby Cannavale as the charming barkeep attempting to not serve Lorenz an excessive amount of, or in any respect.
Sony Photos Classics opens the movie in New York and Los Angeles on October 17, with extra places to comply with on October 24. “Blue Moon” first premiered on the 2025 Berlin Movie Pageant, the place Scott gained the supporting actor Silver Bear for his efficiency as Rodgers.
Learn IndieWire’s “Blue Moon” assessment right here. The movie has but to indicate up on any fall competition lineups, however we’re betting it reveals up in Telluride to assist launch the awards runs for Hawke and Scott. Robert Kaplow, who wrote the e book that impressed Linklater’s biopic “Me and Orson Welles,” wrote the script.
“You put together for a half like this by taking part in Macbeth,” Hawke mentioned on the Berlin Movie Pageant press convention. “What Robert Kaplow wrote for us, this totally stunning script, that if completed proper is mainly a movie that’s one scene… I may say I ready by shaving my head or making ready Lorenz Hart songs. That’s probably not true. It’s a very long time determining methods to stage scenes and methods to make a seven- or 11-page scene dynamic sufficient so that you can watch it.”
Watch the trailer under.
