OSCARS 2026: Blue Moon (2025)

I'm not sure I could ever call myself a fan of Richard Linklater. I liked “School of Rock” and “A Scanner Darkly” but found myself unmoved, perhaps annoyed at times, but some of his other work. The guy, however, is prolific. Since his feature length debut in 1988, he's never gone more than a year or two between pictures, sometimes releasing multiple films only months apart. Linklater's consistency means that some projects are going to fall through the cracks, inevitably being lesser works. 2022's “Apollo 10 ½” was the first of his distributed by Netflix. The streamer giant, notoriously, only puts much promotion into a handful of the countless films they produce in a year. In other words: 2025 was another double year for Linklater and I hadn't even heard of either film until last month. Why I missed that “Blue Moon” existed at all, clearly the Academy did not, giving the motion picture two nominations. 

Linklater has dabbled in behind-the-scenes stories of entertainment industry greats before, with “Me and Orson Welles” and his other 2025 release. “Blue Moon” also operates in this mode. It follows Lorenz Hart – writer of great American songbook standards like “My Funny Valentine,” “The Lady is a Tramp,” and the titular song – on a specific night seven months before the lifelong alcoholic died. His former creative partner, Richard Rodgers, has just debuted his newest Broadway musical, something called “Oklahoma!” After watching the show, the unimpressed Hart slips into Sardi's restaurant and bar. He immediately begins talking of his opinions, his experiences, and his latest romantic fixation with a young college student named Elizabeth. Throughout the night, faces and names that will be famous and obscure walk in and out of the bar. Most notable among them are Rodgers, who is both interested and reluctant in renewing his partnership with Hart, and this Elizabeth that Lorenz can't stop talking about.

From my somewhat limited exposure to Linklater's work, it does seem to me that he likes loosely plotted narratives centered on character interactions and dialogue more than anything else. “Blue Moon” takes this approach and applies it to a story set almost entirely within one location. Nearly the entire film takes place within Sardi's. Hart sets himself at the bar, starts talking with Eddie the bartender, and the other people around the location. While many different characters wander in and out of the bar throughout, much of “Blue Moon” follows this set-up. In other words, “Blue Moon” is rather like a stage play. Not just in its limited scope but also in the way it makes the viewer feel like you are randomly dropping in on a group of people's lives. That the film is about one specific night, the debut of “Oklahoma!” on Broadway, emphasizes that we are merely seeing one incident in a whole series of them. 

Another way “Blue Moon” is like a stage-play is how much the sound and rhythm of the language itself is part of the attraction. Ethan Hawke props himself up on a bar stool in an early scene and immediately begins delivering colorful, lengthy, and fast-paced dialogue about the latest girl of his dream he's met. Much of what follows in “Blue Moon” keeps this going. This is a film full of big personalities, talking in a stylized fashion that is fitting to the swinging forties setting. Later in the movie, Hart describes his dream project to his famous writing partner: A massive production about the life of Marco Polo, with countless dancers and a three ring circus on the stage. Most stage plays don't have production values like that. Most, like the film we are watching, substitute spectacle with memorable human interaction and the kind of pithy, almost musical dialogue that gets you smiling quickly. 

It has been said that the Academy recognizes not the “best” in any given category but rather the “most.” Hawke certainly underwent the kind of impressive physical transformation that impresses the Academy. The 5”10', leading man handsome Hawke is transformed into the 5”4' Hart via a shaved head, some subtle make-up on his face, and classical camera tricks. While some of Hawke's best work make use of his quiet, brooding intensity, this is surely a performance that leans more towards the Most than the Best. The script, breathlessly delivered by Hawke and the rest of the high profile cast, makes sure to illustrate Hart's flaws and virtues equally. His immense creativity and vision, his egotism and pettiness, both his evident wit and his inability to see the most obvious things in front of him. Such as how Elizabeth – played by Margaret Qualley in the kind of enchanting and fast-lipped performance she has quickly come to specialize in – clearly has no romantic feelings towards the old man that is infatuated with her. A better film would do more with these contradictions. “Blue Moon” is instead content to merely link this quality to other ways Hart was two things at once, such as his apparent bisexuality or how he could be both proud and resentful of the titular composition.

I can't deny that “Blue Moon” is a well performed film with a spirited, catchy screenplay. However, there's a reoccurring element to the writing here that bugs me. The film presents Lorenz Hart as a secret architect behind whole swaths of pop culture. Notable figures wander in and out of the story. The writer he chats with is Elwyn Brooks White, as in E.B. White. As in the future author of “Stuart Little,” a sequence where Hart presents an anecdote about a mouse in his apartment goes out of its way to remind us. This is not even the cutest example of such writing in “Blue Moon.” Hart tells a would-be filmmaker to focus less on romantic stories and more on stories between friends. A boy that hangs around Hammerstein, his next door neighbor's child, is said to be an encyclopedia of theatre knowledge. When we learn these individuals' names – George, Stephen – it feels like a punchline to corny jokes. Even a random photographer in the film must be a prominent figure. It's a bit too cute, a distracting running gag. 

There are elements to “Blue Moon” that are worth admiring. Hawke is very good, along with the rest of the cast. In an Oscar year with a less clear front runner, I think he would win Best Actor. (If such a thing comes to pass, I'll consider it a win for his superior acting in “First Reform.”) It's a pleasant film. Linklater supposedly worked on the script for twelve years before coming to a version he actually liked. Despite that, much like the theater writers and directors depicted here, it feels like one of many projects a director that seemingly likes to always be working churns out. He'll be on to the next one soon enough, I'm sure. Whether this becomes an influential fave in his career, like “Dazed and Confused” or the “Before” trilogy, or one that gets kind of forgotten, like “Last Flag Flying" or his "Bad News Bears" remake, is not for us to decide. [6/10]