I sat down to watch Blue Moon expecting another solid Richard Linklater dialogue piece, and I walked away having witnessed one of the most quietly devastating character studies in recent memory. Ethan Hawke delivers what many critics are calling the performance of his career as Lorenz Hart, the legendary Broadway lyricist whose partnership with composer Richard Rodgers produced some of the most beloved songs in the American musical canon. Sony Pictures Classics has brought Blue Moon to Blu-ray following its acclaimed theatrical run and awards season success, and fans of thoughtful, performance-driven cinema have every reason to celebrate.
Blue Moon represents the ninth collaboration between Linklater and Hawke, a creative partnership that has produced Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight, Boyhood, and now this exquisite chamber piece about artistic obsolescence and unrequited love. The film earned Hawke his fifth Academy Award nomination (his third for acting) and secured a Best Original Screenplay nod for writer Robert Kaplow. Andrew Scott won the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance at the Berlin International Film Festival for his portrayal of Richard Rodgers. If you’ve been following Linklater and Hawke’s journey since the mid-1990s, Blue Moon feels like the culmination of everything they’ve learned about dialogue, character, and the passage of time.
For those interested in learning more about Blue Moon and its real-life subject, both Wikipedia and IMDB provide excellent resources for further exploration.
| Title | Blue Moon |
| Year | 2025 |
| Director | Richard Linklater |
| Screenplay | Robert Kaplow |
| Cast | Ethan Hawke, Andrew Scott, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale |
| Running Time | 100 minutes |
| Rating | R |
Technical Specifications
| Video | 1080p HD (2.39:1 Anamorphic Widescreen) |
| Audio | DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 |
| Subtitles | English SDH |
| Disc Format | Blu-ray |
Special Features
- Digital Copy
Table of Contents
Last Call at Sardi’s: Blue Moon’s Intimate Setting
Blue Moon unfolds almost entirely within the confines of Sardi’s restaurant on March 31, 1943, the opening night of Oklahoma!, the groundbreaking musical that would cement Richard Rodgers’ legacy while simultaneously marking the end of Lorenz Hart’s relevance. Hart slips away from the premiere before the final curtain, unable to watch his former partner celebrate a triumph achieved with someone else. He takes his customary seat at the bar, orders drinks he shouldn’t have, and proceeds to hold court with anyone who will listen.
The genius of Robert Kaplow’s screenplay lies in how it reveals Hart’s life through conversation rather than flashback. We learn about his failed proposal to his former muse, his complicated feelings about his own sexuality in an era when such things remained unspoken, his deteriorating mental health, and his deep ambivalence about Oklahoma! itself, a show he considers pandering compared to the sophisticated work he and Rodgers produced together. Hart’s dialogue crackles with wit even as desperation seeps through every observation.
Linklater shot Blue Moon in just 15 days on a soundstage in Dublin, Ireland, an approach that emphasizes the theatrical nature of the material. The single-location structure recalls his earlier work on Tape, another film that trapped compelling characters in a confined space and let the dialogue carry the drama. Regular collaborator Graham Reynolds provides a score that weaves period-appropriate jazz with melancholy undertones.
The Washington Redskin of Broadway: Hawke’s Transformative Performance
Ethan Hawke disappears completely into Lorenz Hart, a transformation so complete that longtime fans of the actor may need several minutes to reconcile what they’re seeing with their memories of Jesse from the Before trilogy. Hawke shaved his head to accommodate Hart’s distinctive comb-over and underwent extensive makeup work to add years and lines to his face. More remarkably, Linklater used what Hawke described as “old stagecraft” to make the nearly six-foot actor appear to be Hart’s actual height of four feet ten inches.
The technical achievement of making Hawke look diminutive pales beside his vocal and physical performance. Hart was a man whose wit served as armor against a world that couldn’t accept his true self, and Hawke captures this quality in every gesture. He talks constantly, brilliantly, desperately, as if silence would allow the darkness to consume him. Roger Ebert’s website praised Hawke’s ability to “believably play witty,” noting that he “convinces us he’s not just reciting lines but responding in every scene with all this character has left: his way with words.”
The performance earned Hawke nominations at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, BAFTA, and Screen Actors Guild Awards. Rotten Tomatoes’ critical consensus specifically highlights Hawke as “a man hanging on by a thread while the audience hangs on to every word said.” For an actor who has built his career on naturalistic performances in contemporary settings, Blue Moon represents a remarkable stretch into period drama and character transformation.
Dick and Larry: Andrew Scott’s Quiet Triumph
Andrew Scott arrives midway through Blue Moon as Richard Rodgers, fresh from the triumphant premiere of Oklahoma!, and immediately establishes a dynamic that crackles with decades of history. Scott won the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance at Berlin for his work here, and the recognition is richly deserved. His Rodgers is a man who genuinely cares for his former partner but has also grown exhausted by Hart’s unreliability and self-destruction.
The film’s finest scene takes place on a staircase landing, where Rodgers and Hart dance around the issues that have defined their relationship. Scott captures the contradictions inherent in a man who knows he still owes a great debt to his former collaborator but cannot overlook the disappointments that accumulated over their twenty-plus years together. Rodgers both encourages Hart to get his act together and knows with certainty that he won’t. The tenderness and frustration exist simultaneously in every line reading.
Scott, best known for his Emmy-nominated work in Fleabag and his starring turn in Ripley, brings movie-star charisma to a role that could easily have become the villain of the piece. Kaplow’s screenplay refuses such easy categorization, and Scott honors that complexity by presenting Rodgers as neither hero nor antagonist but simply a man who made the choices necessary to protect his own career and sanity.
The Girl on the Train: Margaret Qualley’s Elizabeth Weiland
Margaret Qualley plays Elizabeth Weiland, a 20-year-old Yale art student and aspiring production designer who becomes the object of Hart’s romantic attention during the evening. Qualley brings intelligence and conviction to what could have been a thankless role, creating a fully realized woman navigating an encounter with a man she admires but cannot entirely understand.
Blue Moon’s script, inspired by actual letters Elizabeth Weiland wrote to Lorenz Hart, suggests that Hart saw in her the possibility of a different life, one where he might find love with a woman despite his feelings for men. The film handles this aspect of Hart’s biography with sensitivity, acknowledging his sexuality without reducing him to a case study. Qualley’s performance grounds these scenes in human reality rather than melodrama.
The chemistry between Qualley and Hawke provides Blue Moon with its emotional stakes. If the question of whether Hart’s former partner will accept him back forms the professional tension of the evening, the question of whether Elizabeth might accept him forms the personal one. Both outcomes feel predetermined by the time Hart orders his third drink, but watching him hope anyway proves devastating.
Bobby Behind the Bar: Cannavale’s Essential Support
Bobby Cannavale plays Eddie, the bartender at Sardi’s who serves as Hart’s primary audience and occasional confessor throughout the evening. Cannavale has made a career of bringing depth to supporting roles, and his work here exemplifies why directors keep casting him. Eddie is trying to keep Hart sober even as he pours drink after drink, a contradiction that speaks to the impossible position of anyone who loved the lyricist.
The rapport between Cannavale and Hawke provides Blue Moon with its warmest moments. Eddie clearly knows Hart well, having served him through countless evenings of similar desperation, and their exchanges have the comfortable rhythm of old friendship. When Hart launches into another monologue about the declining standards of popular entertainment, Eddie listens with patience born of long experience.
Cannavale’s presence also anchors the film whenever the theatrical contrivances of the single-location structure threaten to become overwhelming. His Eddie is a working man trying to get through his shift, and his reactions to Hart’s increasingly erratic behavior keep the audience grounded in practical reality.
From the Vaults: Supplements in Short Supply
Sony Pictures Classics’ Blu-ray release of Blue Moon arrives with minimal supplements, including only a digital copy of the film. The absence of substantial bonus features represents a missed opportunity given the wealth of material that could have contextualized Blue Moon for viewers unfamiliar with Lorenz Hart’s biography or Linklater and Hawke’s creative partnership.
A commentary track with Linklater and Hawke discussing their nine-film collaboration would have been invaluable. Documentary footage exploring the forced-perspective techniques used to make Hawke appear Hart’s height would have fascinated film students and general audiences alike. Interviews with Robert Kaplow about adapting the Weiland letters into a screenplay, or with the production team about recreating 1943 Sardi’s on a Dublin soundstage, would have added substantial value.
Sony Pictures Classics has historically released catalog titles with lean supplements, and Blue Moon continues that pattern. Viewers who want the film will find an excellent technical presentation, but those hoping for deep dives into the creative process will need to seek out the numerous interviews Linklater and Hawke have given during the awards campaign.
Thirty Years of Before: The Linklater-Hawke Partnership
Blue Moon arrives as Linklater and Hawke celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of Before Sunrise, the 1995 romance that launched their collaboration. Since that first film, they have worked together on The Newton Boys, Waking Life, Tape, Before Sunset, Fast Food Nation, Before Midnight, and Boyhood. Blue Moon marks their ninth collaboration and their first since Boyhood wrapped its twelve-year production in 2014.
The partnership has yielded four Academy Award nominations for writing (two for Hawke, who co-wrote Before Sunset and Before Midnight with Linklater and Julie Delpy) and one for acting (Hawke’s supporting nomination for Boyhood). Blue Moon adds to that count with Hawke’s fifth overall Oscar nomination. Critic Justin Chang has called the Before trilogy “Hawke’s signature achievement,” and the character of Jesse “the quintessential Hawke character.”
Linklater has said that he waited to make Blue Moon until Hawke was old enough to play Hart in the final months of his life. The director joked that Hawke was also “too good-looking” in earlier years to portray the diminutive, balding lyricist. The twelve-year development process allowed both artists to find the right moment for the material, and their patience has been rewarded with some of the strongest reviews of their careers.
The Last of Rodgers and Hart: Historical Context
Blue Moon takes place on March 31, 1943, a date that marks both the beginning and the end of eras in American musical theater. Oklahoma! opened that evening at the St. James Theatre and would run for an unprecedented 2,212 performances, establishing the template for the integrated book musical that would dominate Broadway for decades. Meanwhile, Lorenz Hart’s career effectively ended that same night, though he would live for another seven months.
Hart and Rodgers had collaborated for over twenty years, producing approximately one thousand songs and twenty-eight stage musicals. Their greatest works included Babes in Arms, The Boys from Syracuse, Pal Joey, and On Your Toes. Songs like “My Funny Valentine,” “The Lady Is a Tramp,” “Blue Moon,” “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” and “Isn’t It Romantic?” remain standards of the Great American Songbook.
The partnership ended because Hart declined to adapt Green Grow the Lilacs into a musical, doubting that the folk play could succeed on Broadway. Rodgers turned to Oscar Hammerstein II, and their collaboration produced Oklahoma! Hart, struggling with alcoholism and depression exacerbated by his mother’s recent death, could only watch as his former partner achieved the greatest success of either man’s career. He died of pneumonia on November 22, 1943, five days after the opening of a revival of their earlier musical A Connecticut Yankee.
Sardi’s in High Definition: Video Quality
Sony Pictures Classics delivers Blue Moon in a handsome 1080p transfer that captures cinematographer Shane F. Kelly’s warm, amber-toned recreation of 1943 New York. The 2.39:1 anamorphic frame creates pockets of intimacy within the restaurant setting, frequently isolating Hart against backgrounds that emphasize his loneliness even when surrounded by people.
Kelly shot Blue Moon on ARRIRAW cameras at 4.6K resolution using anamorphic Panavision lenses, giving the Blu-ray transfer excellent source material. Fine detail remains strong throughout, from the textures of period costumes to the famous caricature portraits that line Sardi’s walls. The carefully controlled color palette presents rich skin tones and accurate period production design without excessive digital manipulation.
Shadow detail proves particularly important given Blue Moon’s bar-set majority, and the transfer handles these challenges well. The Blu-ray maintains clean blacks without crushing important visual information in the darker corners of the frame. Viewers watching on properly calibrated displays will appreciate the theatrical quality of the presentation.
Conversations Worth Hearing: Audio Quality
Blue Moon arrives with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack that serves the dialogue-heavy material appropriately. Given that the film consists primarily of conversation with occasional period music, the audio mix prioritizes clarity above all else. Every word of Hawke’s marathon performance comes through cleanly, and the subtle ambient sounds of a busy restaurant provide appropriate atmosphere without overwhelming the speeches.
Graham Reynolds’ score, performed on period-appropriate instruments, spreads across the soundstage with warmth and presence. The occasional musical performances within the film, including Jonah Lees’ piano work as the character nicknamed Knuckles, demonstrate the track’s dynamic range. Bass response remains controlled, as befits a chamber drama rather than an action spectacle.
The single-location nature of Blue Moon means the soundtrack has limited opportunities to demonstrate aggressive surround usage, but the rear channels contribute meaningful ambience. The clatter of dishes, the murmur of other patrons, and the occasional sounds from outside the restaurant create an enveloping environment that places viewers inside Sardi’s alongside the characters.
Why Blue Moon Still Matters
Blue Moon arrives at a moment when questions about artistic obsolescence feel particularly urgent. The creative industries face disruption from technological change and shifting audience preferences, and many established artists find themselves wondering whether their best work lies behind them. Hart’s situation in 1943, watching his former partner succeed with a new collaborator while his own health and reputation deteriorate, resonates with contemporary anxieties even as it remains rooted in its specific historical moment.
The film also offers a thoughtful exploration of the costs of closeted life during an era when acknowledging one’s sexuality could destroy a career. Hart’s “omnisexuality,” as he describes it in the film, complicated his romantic life and contributed to his self-destructive behavior. Blue Moon treats this aspect of his biography with sensitivity, neither exploiting it for drama nor minimizing its impact on his wellbeing.
Rotten Tomatoes reports that 90% of critics gave Blue Moon positive reviews, with particular praise for Hawke’s performance and Kaplow’s screenplay. The film competed for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes and earned two Academy Award nominations. For viewers who appreciate thoughtful, performance-driven cinema, Blue Moon offers substantial rewards.
The Final Verdict on Sony Pictures Classics’ Blue Moon Blu-ray
Sony Pictures Classics has delivered a technically accomplished Blu-ray of Blue Moon that faithfully reproduces the theatrical experience. The 1080p transfer honors Shane F. Kelly’s cinematography, and the DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack ensures that every word of Ethan Hawke’s remarkable performance reaches viewers with clarity and presence. The absence of substantial supplements disappoints, but the quality of the feature presentation itself cannot be faulted.
For fans of Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke’s thirty-year collaboration, Blue Moon represents an essential addition to the collection. The film demonstrates that both artists continue to grow and take risks, stretching into period drama and character transformation while maintaining the dialogue-driven sensibility that has defined their partnership. Hawke’s performance ranks among the finest of his career, and the supporting work from Andrew Scott, Margaret Qualley, and Bobby Cannavale elevates the material further.
Blue Moon demands patience from its audience. This is not a loud or dramatic biopic but rather a calm, melancholic evening spent inside the mind of a man who realizes the world is moving on without him. Viewers who surrender to its rhythm will find themselves moved by its quiet tragedy. Those seeking fireworks should look elsewhere, but those who appreciate the kind of cinema that trusts its audience to engage with complex emotions will discover something special.
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