Despite being smack dab in the middle of World War II, March 31st, 1943, was a day for celebration, specifically on the streets of Broadway. The stage musical Oklahoma! premiered that night, the first of 2,212 total performances, not including multiple revivals, domestic and foreign tours, youth productions, and a feature film adaptation. The reviews were enthusiastic raves, a special Pulitzer Prize was awarded, and the partnership of composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II was cemented in glory right from the start. Over the next few decades, the team would create some of the most important productions of the 20th century, including Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music.

But as one door opens, another closes. Before there was Rodgers and Hammerstein, there was Rodgers and [Lorenz] Hart. The latter pair was the most celebrated songwriting duo of the early decades of the century, raising the profile of the art form through their complex rhymes and wit. It’s a bit of a punchline for director Richard Linklater’s chamber piece about Hart to take its title after one of his most popular songs, one that he looks down on as a piece of shallow populism for the masses. Although, as played by Ethan Hawke and written by Robert Kaplow, it’s difficult to pinpoint what Hart liked and didn’t like. He bemoans some of the Hollywood-y writing in Casablanca, yet endlessly quotes it with his favorite bartender, Eddie (Bobby Cannavale). He spends the whole night tearing Oklahoma! to shreds, all while endlessly praising Rodgers as a musical genius.

That dichotomy is what defined Hart. Hammerstein said that he was “alert and dynamic and fun to be around,” while singer Mabel Mercer thought that “he was the saddest man I ever knew.” Both of those quotes come alive in their purest form as Hart sits down at his favorite bar, Sardi’s, after walking out midway through Oklahoma!. Is he jealous that the first show that Rodgers does without him is going to be one of the biggest hits in the history of Broadway? “Fuck yes!” He’s extremely vulgar throughout the rest of the night, steadily downing a bottle of whiskey, all while babbling about how he needs to stop drinking. It only takes a few minutes for us to understand why Rodgers might have needed a change of pace after more than two decades of being with Hart.

This whole “performance” that Hart puts on would be much more grating if it weren’t filtered through Hawke’s incredible performance. It’s a full-body transformation, complete with a comb-over hairpiece and visual trickery to make the 5-foot-10 actor appear almost a foot shorter. It’s often a bit of a gimmick, with a couple of blurry full-body shots drawing too much attention below the waist rather than to what Hawke is doing with his eyes and mouth. The camera matches the actor’s nonstop energy, steadily gliding on a track, transfixed on every syllable he ingeniously twists in his favor. Linklater and his longtime editor, Sandra Adair, quickly cut back and forth between Hart, Eddie, and piano player Morty Rifkin (Jonah Lees) as they playfully banter about art and women. Hart fancies Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley), a beautiful college student whom he foolishly believes could fall in love with a short, balding, forty-seven-year-old man.

Blue Moon comes out around the same time as Linklater’s other 2025 film, Nouvelle Vague, which chronicles the creation of the film Breathless. Be it a coincidence or not that both of these films focus on mercurial geniuses, Linklater explores the conflicting areas where art is born. But while Nouvelle Vague is (charmingly) preoccupied with answering “how?” through fanciful homage and recreation, Blue Moon finds itself more interested in “why?” Kaplow, whose only other credit is as the author of the book that Me and Orson Welles is based on, finds the reasons why such a depressed and profane man could write such cheery tunes. His failure to get backing for his challenging projects illustrates that he was born in the wrong era; his genius wordplay dulled by the wants and needs for everything to be served with a smile. Rodgers and Hammerstein knew that fact, leaving Hart to be a bit of an also-ran in the annals of Broadway history.

Andrew Scott appears as Rodgers about halfway through the film, glowing from the reception of Oklahoma!. He and Hawke have a wonderful rapport, cracking jokes and making playful stabs while one is trying to cling to their relationship, while the other is getting ready to leave it. Linklater and Hawke feel like they occupy a similar comfortable space, with a major difference being that it doesn’t seem like their thirty-year relationship is any danger of ceasing. And if the fruits are going to be this sublime this many years in, I can only imagine how sweet they’ll be another thirty years from now.