Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke reunite for Blue Moon (2025), a compact character study that plays in similar fashion to their collaboration nearly 25 years ago Tape. Set almost entirely inside Sardi’s Bar in 1943, the film follows a single night in the life of lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) on the evening that his ex-creative partner Richard Rodgers’ Oklahoma! premieres to rapturous success nearby. Hawke’s Hart drinks, riffs and ricochets through memories and resentments, bending conversations to his own restless monologue whether the audience is Eddie the bartender (Bobby Cannavale), the much younger Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley), or Rodgers himself (Andrew Scott).
Hawke is the main attraction. He plays Hart as a brilliant, closeted wit whose need to perform is inseparable from his loneliness. The physicality matters too. Linklater often frames Hart to emphasize his small stature in crowded rooms, a visual reminder of how easily he is minimized by an industry that relies solely on his words. When Rodgers arrives, Andrew Scott gives him a cool, contained reserve that says plenty about why the Rodgers and Hart partnership flourished and why it fell apart. There is admiration on both sides, also embarrassment, also fear of what Hart might say out loud.
Blue Moon is at its best as an insider portrait of Broadway’s golden age that refuses the cradle-to-grave biopic template. Robert Kaplow’s script, who previously collaborated with Linklater on Me and Orson Welles, limits the canvas to a single boozy night, which keeps the focus on texture rather than trivia. Linklater’s direction is controlled and unfussy, letting the bar’s amber light and clinking glasses carry the mood while Hawke modulates between charm, self-sabotage and naked need.
The film is also shapeless in patches. The first half leans so hard on Hart’s free-associative patter that it risks feeling like a warm-up act, and waiting more than 30 minutes for Margaret Qualley and Andrew Scott to enter leaves the opening stretch short on friction. Once they arrive, the scenes sharpen and the push-pull between Hart and Rodgers finally has something to spark against. Even then, at a hair over 100 minutes, Blue Moon sometimes feels like a great 85-minute chamber piece wearing a looser suit.
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As a showcase for Ethan Hawke and a reminder of how deft Richard Linklater can be with talky, time-bound dramas, Blue Moon works. It is insightful about Lorenz Hart’s place in the shadow of Richard Rodgers and sympathetic to the costs of being the life of the party when the party ends. The film never quite finds the early “hook” that would make it unmissable, yet its contained approach, strong performances from Hawke, Andrew Scott and Margaret Qualley, and Linklater’s steady hand make this a worthwhile, mid-tier entry in a long creative partnership.
Score: 6/10
Blue Moon (2025)
- Cast: Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Scott, Jonah Lees
- Director: Richard Linklater
- Genre: Comedy, Drama, History, Music, Romance
- Runtime: 100 minutes
- Rated: R
- Release Date: October 24, 2025
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