Blue Moon: A Review - Ethan Hawke Hits it Over the Moon

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A flawed film that features a very noteworthy performance from Ethan Hawke that makes it well-worth watching.

Blue Moon, directed by Richard Linklater and starring Ethan Hawke, tells the story of famed lyricist Lorenz Hart (Hawke) navigating emotional turmoil as he attends the 1943 opening night party of his former writing partner Richard Rodgers’ new Broadway musical Oklahoma!

The film, which has garnered two Academy Award nominations – Best Actor for Ethan Hawke and Best original Screenplay for Robert Kaplow, hit theatres on October 17th with little fanfare and is now available to stream on Netflix…which is where I just watched it.

For those of you unfamiliar with Lorenz Hart, he – along with his collaborator Richard Rodgers, made up Rodgers and Hart - one of the great musical duos in music theatre history – creating such notable numbers as “Lady is a Tramp”, “Isn’t it Romantic?”, “My Funny Valentine”, and of course, “Blue Moon”.

Hart was a notorious drunk and difficult collaborator, and so Rodgers looked for other writing partners and found one in Oscar Hammerstein…and remarkably that duo outdid the success of Rodgers and Hart – churning out a bevy of Broadway box office smash hits like Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music among others.

Which brings us to Blue Moon, which is a curious venture.

The film is, in a clever nod to its subject, essentially a stage play, as it is set in Sardi’s bar – the famed apres-show eatery for Broadway big wigs, where Lorenz Hart, struggling with alcoholism mixed with self-doubt and existential angst, holds court amongst wannabes and some notable somebodies, as he awaits a party to start for his former partner Richard Rodgers on opening night of his soon-to-be smash hit musical Oklahoma!

Anyone who has spent even a modicum of time in the theatre or entertainment world is very familiar with the archetype of the aging gay queen that poor Lorenz Hart is occupying as he holds court at the corner of a bar regaling sycophants, stoics and sad sacks alike with his wondrous tales, which, if seen through more discerning eyes are less funny comic confessionals than they are malignant, narcissistic ramblings.

The film is contained within the walls of Sardi’s, and that is the stage for Ethan Hawke to spin his masterful brilliance as Hart flails with flair on the downward spiral of his life.

Ethan Hawke has done some of his very best work with Richard Linklater at the helm (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight, and Boyhood) and Blue Moon is the very best of the bunch. He is utterly fantastic in this role. Hawke’s Hart is a magnetic, brilliant, and existentially sad shlub, marinated in a profound melancholy of his own making and it is absolutely captivating to behold.

Hawke’s Hart is funny, frustrating and at times deeply moving and always compelling. Hawke is nominated for Best Actor at this year’s Academy Awards and while he stands no chance to win, he certainly is deserving of the award.

As much as I loved Ethan Hawke in the film and also loved that it is essentially a stage play, Blue Moon does have some major flaws to it.

First off, the character of Elizabeth – the Yale undergrad theatre student with whom Hart has become infatuated despite his being homosexual, is, despite being a cornerstone of the storytelling, a not-needed and often annoying distraction.

To be clear, I love Margaret Qualley – the actress who plays Elizabeth, and have ever since I first saw her in Novitiate in 2017. She is a dynamic talented and a luminous beauty…but both the Elizabeth character and Qualley’s performance just don’t work for me.

The same is true of Bobby Cannavale as the bartender Eddie. I must admit that I think Bobby Cannavale is awful in everything I see him in…and he makes everything he is in worse…and Blue Moon is no exception.

Andrew Scott and Patrick Kennedy fare much better in supporting roles as Richard Rodgers and E.B. White respectively…so there’s that.

But again…even as much as I liked Kennedy’s reserved performance as E.B. White, it touches upon another issue I had with the film…namely the Zelig/Forest Gump-esque quality of Lorenz Hart in this film to touch history with his nearly every interaction.

For example, Hart gives prescient writing advice to E.B. White (who goes on the write Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little), prescient storytelling advice to George Roy Hill (who goes on the direct Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid among others), and prescient insight to a pre-pubescent Stephen Sondheim (who goes on to be a giant in musical theatre).

This series of historical interactions is so cheesy it made my lactose intolerance act up…and most importantly…it is entirely made up…it never happened in real life. Why the writer Kaplow and Linklater thought the story needed this corny nonsense is utterly beyond me.

Kaplow did write a strong one-man show for Hawke to flex his acting monologue muscles as Hart, and he should be credited for that, but he stumbles badly in terms of structure and secondary characters and storylines.

As for Linklater, Blue Moon is the second film he has put out this year, the other being Nouvelle Vague – the story of the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s classic French new wave film Breathless. Nouvelle Vague served little purpose but to get people to watch Breathless again…or for the first time…and that’s a noble cause, but Blue Moon feels like the more compelling movie to me…maybe that’s because I know less about Lorenz hart and musical theatre than I do about Breathless and French New Wave cinema….who knows?

The truth is that neither film is quite as good as it should have been…but Blue Moon is a much better movie because Ethan Hawke is absolutely crushing it in the lead role.

The bottom line is that while Blue Moon certainly has its flaws, it is an undeniably compelling watch simply because Ethan Hawke is so damn good as Lorenz Hart.

If you are a current or former theatre muffin, or if you are a devout and devoted lover of musical theatre, I think Blue Moon will be worth a watch to get a glimpse of Hawke masterfully bringing the troubled Lorenz Hart back to life before your eyes.

For those not as enamored of musical theatre, fret not…Blue Moon still works as a one-man Ethan Hawke acting show that will hold your attention despite its unevenness. So, if you get a chance, you could do worse than check out Blue Moon.

©2026

Nouvelle Vague: A Review - Non 'Mange Tes Mort', Mais Plutot 'N'importe Quoi'*

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A rather fruitless endeavor devoid of insight and drama. I highly recommend you go straight to the source and watch Breathless and the rest of the French New Wave classics instead.

*Apologies to the French if I butchered their language in the headline.

Nouvelle Vague, directed by Richard Linklater, is a new Netflix film that dramatizes the making of the iconic 1960 Jean-Luc Godard film, Breathless, which was one of the first films of the French New Wave.

The Nouvelle Vague, which translated means “New Wave”, was born among a cohort of cinephiles and cinema intellectuals in the offices of the famed French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema in the 1950s – which included Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol as well as filmmakers Alain Resnais, Agnes Varda, Jacque Demy and Chris Marker.

Breathless, which is an existential love story/ crime drama, was a revolutionary film that signaled the emergence of the French New Wave and its unorthodox style – most notably long tracking shots, jump cuts and breaking filmmaking rules like continuity and 180-degree axis of camera movement, upon cinema.

Breathless was enormously popular and is considered by some to be one of the very best films ever made.

I do not think Breathless is one of the greatest films ever made…I don’t think it is even the best French New Wave film ever made – I’d go with Truffault’s The 400 Blows (1959) for that title…followed closely by Truffault’s Jules et Jim (1962) and Alian Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), but I do think Breathless is a fantastic piece of cinema.

Whatever you may think of Godard and the French New Wave – and lots of people don’t think much of it (those people are meat-headed philistines!!), Breathless is a phenomenal film that radiates with an undeniable cinematic magnetism and momentum.

Watching the film and its’ avant-garde cinematic styling, as well as its compelling and charming performances from Jean-Paul Belmondo and the luminous Jean Seberg, is a pure joy.

Unfortunately, Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, which is an ode to, and dramatization of, Breathless, is not much of a joy. In fact, it is quite a baffling and confounding experience that never seems to make much sense or coalesce into a coherent piece of cinema.

Linklater, who is occasionally a bit of a cinema revolutionary himself – as evidenced by his unorthodox films Waking Life and Boyhood, obviously adores the French New Wave in general and Breathless/Godard in particular. But his film about the making of Breathless is the polar opposite of Breathless itself, as it seems to serve no purpose and is devoid of the magnetism, momentum and energy that make Breathless the iconic film that it is.

Nouvelle Vague recounts the daily struggle to get Breathless made and the original, dare I say “odd”, way it was made. It highlights how Godard was a difficult artist who refused to compromise his vision, and kept most everyone in the dark about what that vision actually was.

As a cinephile and a lover of the French New Wave (and also a lover of the Italian Neo-Realists who were the precursors to the Nouvelle Vague), I understand the appeal of examining it, I just don’t think trying to re-enact the making of an iconic movie is the best way to do that.

Yes, there are some fun little moments in Nouvelle Vague, and it is momentarily enjoyable to go “oh hey!! There’s Truffaut…or Roberto Rossellini or Chabrol!!” But ultimately, Nouvelle Vague feels like an empty gesture, a recreation of a great moment in history that is stripped of all its drama, mystery and thrills….sort of like the recreation of a famous battle – it lacks drama because the bullets aren’t real…and thus the stakes are null and void. In other words, it is all play acting - making insight, not to mention genuine drama, impossible.

As dramatic as the making of Breathless was at the time, there is no drama in revisiting it as we know that ultimately the film gets made, is a masterpiece and Godard is venerated as a genius and proven right. So, when obstacles appear in Nouvelle Vague regarding the making of Breathless…they are nothing but toothless drama.

The cast of the film do decent enough jobs mimicking their famous characters. For example, Guillaume Marbeck seems exactly like what you’d think what Jean-Luc Godard was like. But the performance, as enjoyable as it was, feels a bit empty…like something you’d see at a Paris amusement park dedicated to French filmmakers.

Zoey Deutch plays Jean Seberg – who was quite a fascinating character in real-life (and who died at a very young age – and under very mysterious circumstances -  which included “meddling” from the U.S. intelligence community), is not so fascinating in Nouvelle Vague. Deutch is certainly a beauty like Seberg, but she lacks the charisma and charm of her iconic character.

The overwhelming feeling after watching Nouvelle Vague was simply – why would I watch this instead of watching Breathless itself? The answer, of course, is that you shouldn’t.

Breathless is streaming on HBO Max – or Max or whatever the hell HBO is calling their streaming service nowadays. Instead of watching Nouvelle Vague on Netflix, go watch Breathless on HBO Max, and then watch The 400 Blows, and Jules et Jim (both are also on Max), and Hiroshima, Mon Amour.

If you want to do a deep dive on the French New Wave _ which I highly recommend…The Criterion Channel streaming service (which is excellent) has a great collection (which include all three of the above films, and they also have a great collection of Italian Neo-Realist films too which I highly recommend (Bicycle Thieves, Rome: Open City and Germany: Year Zero are a great place to start).

The bottom line is that as much as Richard Linklater may genuinely love the French New Wave, Breathless and Godard, he does it no favors with his rather tepid and trite Nouvelle Vague – which is hamstrung by a paucity of interest and insight.

So, if you are interested in the slightest in the French New Wave, Breathless and/or Godard (you should be!), skip Nouvelle Vague and go to the original source…you’ll be very glad you did.

©2025