Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke are up there with Martin Scorsese and De Niro, even Alfred Hitchcock and James Stewart, as one in every 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 venture 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 one in every 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 inventive break up.
“Blue Moon” is ready over the course of 1 evening, 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 professional} lives dovetail and unravel as jealousy seethes over his former inventive 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 tragic starlet of the Jazz Age). The solid consists of Andrew Scott as Richard Rodgers, Simon Delaney as Oscar Hammerstein, Cillian Sullivan as Stephen Sondheim, and Bobby Cannavale because the charming barkeep making an attempt 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 Competition, the place Scott received the supporting actor Silver Bear for his efficiency as Rodgers.
Learn IndieWire’s “Blue Moon” assessment right here. The movie has but to point out up on any fall competition lineups, however we’re betting it exhibits 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 an element like this by enjoying Macbeth,” Hawke stated on the Berlin Movie Competition press convention. “What Robert Kaplow wrote for us, this positively lovely script, that if achieved 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 the way to stage scenes and the way to make a seven- or 11-page scene dynamic sufficient so that you can watch it.”
Watch the trailer under.