Blue Moon: Where the Enduring Lives by Maddie Schumacher

*Spoilers Ahead for Blue Moon

“You ever meet someone, and know instantly that both your lives are going to be irretrievably altered?” 

I don’t feel compelled to write film reviews much. As the editor of this column, I like to fix your prose and talk about films in the privacy of my own home.  But some films pull me out of hiding; they make me want to scream my praise. 

This is me screaming said praise: 

I grew up in New York City with Ashkenazi Jewish grandparents who live and breathe for Rodgers & Hammerstein; it’s in my DNA. I remember staying at my grandparents' home in Long Island, New York, and listening to the soundtrack of The King and I or South Pacific. I (at the age of seven) recall singing "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Out of My Hair” for my very first audition, a melody perhaps preparing me for the reality of what liking a man would feel like many years later. 

Blue Moon, Richard Linklater’s newest film, isn't focused on Rodgers & Hammerstein but Rodgers & Hart: specifically Richard “Dick” Rodgers’ and Lorenz Hart’s “final” night as their 25-year collaboration comes to an end. 

I “knew” Richard Rodgers. I “knew” Oscar Hammerstein II. Hart was a name vaguely familiar to me (I probably thought Hart was some form of abbreviation for Hammerstein. Forgive me, Jewish Grandparents!) 

I had only really known Richard Rodgers’ second marriage. Although it was the most successful musical collaboration of its time, I had no idea there had been a first. I knew the stepfather; I never met the dad. 

In other words, (as the kids say), I was locked in. 

The film knocked the wind out of me. I was left staring at a blank wall, sorry for a man I had never met, with an illustrious career I hadn’t known. 

EDITORS' NOTE: * I want to clarify that I know “My Funny Valentine”… Grandma, I am not completely clueless..

The film begins with a frenzied Lorenz “Larry” Hart falling to his drunken death in the rain. We rewind seven years. It is March 31, 1943, the opening night of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma!  Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) is watching the musical in his box seat. He is squirmish; he needs a drink. Or a notepad. Or a gun.

What follows is an hour and forty-five minutes of Lorenz Hart watching his “husband” marry someone else. It’s a verbally hypnotic picture, somewhere between the Before Trilogy (my favorites) and Tape (a movie adaptation of a play I just did (self promo)). Ethan Hawke is talking (and he’s talking a lot). And in perfect Linklater style, the story unfolds in one single night.

Larry leaves the opening of the musical and heads straight for Sardi’s restaurant, a landmark of the New York Theatre District. This is where he is seeking refuge, but also (conveniently) where Oklahoma!’s after party is being held. 

Larry is talking the ear off of Louie, the bartender (played fabulously by Bobby Cannavale). What Larry is talking about is a bit of a clusterfuck. In one moment, he is lamenting about his ex-husband's new wife (and their new baby, Oklahoma!): 

“What can I say about Oscar.. All seven feet of him.. And you know Dick deliberately went with someone tall this time!” If it sounds like Lorenz Hart is jealous, that's because he is. 

In another moment, he is rambling about Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley), the twenty-year-old mentee whose love he is trying to win:

“You know what I call her in my letters? My irreplaceable Elizabeth.” 

And then there are, of course, the relentless attempts of self-preservation. The ones you hear from the artist who is past his prime—the confidence of the fallen. 

“I have written a handful of words that are going to cheat death.” He then compares himself to Shakespeare. Humility, we learn quickly, isn't Hart’s talent. 

The film's beginning structure feels completely theatrical, like one of Tracy Letts' plays: you are being told what is coming, but positioned in front of Larry long enough to wait out the explosion. Larry’s rambling moves in such manic motion, you could easily believe Dick Rodgers and Elizabeth Weiland may never arrive. You are caught up in Lorenz Hart’s wandering completely; the present is the gift. 

If you blink, you might miss a moment.

But then the rest of the crew does arrive. Elizabeth comes in with “ineffable” force, and the woman you've heard about for the last thirty minutes clearly loves Larry, just “not in that way.” Qualley is effervescent (as she always is) in her portrayal of Elizabeth. She is in the room where it happens; she is young and hungry. She doesn't want to sleep with Larry; she wants to connect with him on LinkedIn. In a scene later in the film, set in a tiny coat closet, Qualley confesses to being in love with a boy from school. She's beautiful, and watching Larry (for the first time in sixty minutes) actually listen to someone makes Qualley’s gift to the film clear. Elizabeth is that of the next generation. A symbol of fleeting youth. 

And then, right as we are about to forget about him, Dick Rodgers enters. Dick (played by the consistently marvelous Andrew Scott) is a force to be reckoned with. Larry lays it on thick with praise when Dick arrives. But Dick Rodgers can see through it all. His exhaustion is clear. It's the biggest night of his career, and he's going to be babysitting Larry and Larry’s feelings. And he knows it. 

“I don't want to spend any more time looking for you, Larry… I just don't want to do what we did.” 

The cracks in their relationship become central. Lorenz Hart is a magnificent lyricist, but it's becoming clear he wasn't a magnificent partner. He couldn't meet the deadline. He drank. He showed up extremely late, if he showed up at all. 

The emotional core of this film is watching Dick Rodgers try not to slip back into Lorenz Hart, almost like watching an addict fight their drug. Larry can't help but pitch the duo's next show. And Dick can't help but smile and laugh. He is still amused. The two are nostalgic, and then a minute later, they're both defensive, fighting. Dick is reminded why he stopped getting high. 

“And I'm telling you, I swear to god, our best work is still ahead of us…You and I can do something so much more emotionally complicated.” 

Dick and Larry have so many years between them that the two can't help but collide. It's like watching your divorced parents watch their wedding tape and forget, for just a moment, what came next. 

“Your work is brilliant. That's not the problem.” 

It's watching Lorenz Hart realize he may be losing his mind, his friend (and his career). Feeling physically unsettled as a spectator, watching him struggle to be happy as his best friend gains everything they both once wanted. 

What would it feel like to rise with your best friend? What would it feel like to watch them rise on without you? 

At 22, I haven't built -let alone broken- a 25-year collaboration. Yet, I somehow left this film grieving what felt like a tangible loss. The shape of Dick and Larry’s attachment is legible to anyone who's ever dreamed for two. 

I couldn't help but understand this. This feeling is the epicenter of being a young artist (well, maybe any artist) with fellow artistic friends. And yet, I mean it when I also say I want my friends to soar. 

But like Lorenz Hart, I am also undoubtedly human. I understand the pitfalls of wanting two things at the exact same time. We want our friends to win, but don't we all kinda wanna win with them too? 

The two can both be true. In fact, the two feelings of coexisting - admiration and jealousy - are even slightly promised in friendship. Maybe even guaranteed. 

Maybe that's just a part of the deal. 

“Be careful of love stories. Think about friendship stories. That's where the really enduring stuff lives.” 

Ethan Hawke has seriously never led better: chaotically captivating, hilarious, and utterly singular. Hawke is a ticking time bomb of expression, and it's a side of his work I'd follow anywhere. 

Blue Moon is my film of the year.

I’m late to the party. I know. Blue Moon came out in October. It is now April.

It doesn't matter that I am late. It matters that I have arrived.