Blue Moon

Ethan Hawke delivers a charming, lived-in performance as lyricist Lorenz Hart, holding court at Sardi’s on the historic night of his former collaborator Richard Rodgers’ (Andrew Scott) greatest triumph: the premiere of Oklahoma!

It’s 31 March 1943: the opening night of Oklahoma!, the first musical collaboration between Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. But the celebratory afterparty at iconic Theater District institution Sardi’s is haunted by Rodgers’s former collaborative partner Lorenz Hart, an embittered, sharp-tongued wordsmith drinking himself into an early grave. As Hart laments his failing career and the changing nature of musical theatre, eternal questions about the relationship between art, commerce and the audience take centre stage.

Revered US filmmaker Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Boyhood) synthesises the backstage showbiz lore approach of his 2008 period drama Me and Orson Welles with the conversational, philosophical mode of his beloved Before trilogy to craft an engaging chamber drama. Marking the ninth collaboration between Linklater and Ethan Hawke, who brilliantly embodies the troubled songwriter – and also featuring Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale and Andrew Scott, who received the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance at the 2025 Berlinale for his turn as Rodgers – Blue Moon offers an incisive character study of a complicated protagonist and a glorious showcase for one of the great ongoing actor–director partnerships of American independent cinema.

Screening at Luna Leederville from January 29.