Movie Review: Blue Moon

 

Michael's Movie Grade: A+

One of the best movies of the year (so far). 

For those of you unaware Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers were one of the greatest songwriting teams of the 20th century. With Hart providing the lyrics and Rodgers providing the music, the team had written many gems of the Great American Songbook. These include My Funny Valentine, Where or When, The Lady Is a Tramp, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered and of course Blue Moon. The two worked only together until Rodgers teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II for Oklahoma. This movie tells the story of Lorenz Hart at a bar after seeing the premiere of Oklahoma. 

On paper it would seem like a movie like this wouldn't work. It takes place almost entirely in one setting and is filled with wall-to-wall dialogue. While you can argue about how cinematic this type of storytelling is, you become so caught up in how great the dialogue is that you don't even really pay attention to this. Early on in the film, two characters quote Casablanca (1942) to each other. Perhaps it is inevitable that a movie filled with such great dialogue would pay tribute to the film with the most iconic dialogue in cinema history. The script by Robert Kaplow (author of the best seller Me and Orson Welles) is extremely witty, intelligent, engaging and insightful. This is the kind of script that stays with you long after the film is over. The ideas expressed in the dialogue are very profound and thought provoking, yet this is not the only charm of the dialogue. Being a film about a lyricist, words are chosen not only for their meaning but their sound. Appropriately there is a real lyrical quality to the dialogue that is quite entrancing. Even so the dialogue can also be really funny at times, which helps the film from getting too heavy as to not be entertaining. Of course, having some of the greatest American music play throughout the movie

One line from Casablanca that is quoted numerous times throughout is "nobody ever loved me that much." Within this quote lies the tragedy of the story. Though Hart had some written the lyrics to some the greatest love songs ever, he never experienced that kind of love himself. Meanwhile his alcoholism and personal problems have driven away the closest people he ever had to him. This movie looks at a deeply lonely and sad man, who finds more companionship with a bartender and piano player in a bar than to those who should be closest to him. Yet the movie does not spend most of its time pitying him but rather empathizing with him. We deeply feel every emotion he is feeling and any of us who have ever felt lonely or incapable of being loved, see too much of ourselves for our own comfort. This complexity is perfectly captured by Ethan Hawke's magnificent performance. This may be the best performance of his career as he perfectly captures every single emotion and complexity to this character.   

Yet Hawke is not the only standout of this cast. The whole cast is excellent, and special attention must go to Margaret Qualley as a younger woman he is infatuated with. She is positively radiant on screen, and we can perfect understand this infatuation.

This is a pure masterpiece.