Eight films have implemented Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke together, from the decades of tensioning masterpiece Boyhood to the Before trilogy, in which Julie Delpy should not be forgotten as the third important name. However, the work relationship between Linklater and Hawke has grown significantly in the past three decades and is now going into the next round.
With Blue Moon, the ninth collaboration of the inseparable director’s spectacle is celebrating its premiere at the Berlinale 2025. It is one of the most expected films of the festival. Last but not least, Linklater and Hawke belong to the circle of the Berlinale tribe guests who regularly honor the festival with their works. This does not change under the direction of the new director Tricia Tuttle.
Blue Moon at the Berlinale: Richard Linklater & Ethan Hawke awaken Broadway genius to life
At first glance, Blue Moon looks like a Berlinale blockbuster. Big names in front of and behind the camera, not to mention a Broadway genius at the center of the plot. Lorenz Hart, who is behind timeless classics such as My Funny Valentine, The Lady is a Tramp and the title -giving Blue Moon, is told by songwriter Lorenz. However, Blue Moon has not become an epic biopic à la Maestro.
Linklater presents a pointed and touching chamber gamethat in the evening of the premiere celebration of the musical Oklahoma! is located and it is not uncommon to feel the film adaptation of a play. In fact, Blue Moon is based on an idea of the writer Robert Kaplow, who is no stranger in the Linklater cosmos. He wrote the Roman I & Orson Welles, which Linklater adapted in 2008.
An evening is enough to spread Lorenz’s life hard in front of us. Of course, we do not learn every detail about his career in this short period of time. But that is exactly one of the great stimuli of the approach. Even if you have never been hard and Oklahoma! Heard: Kaplow works precisely in his artist portrait, the essence of his protagonist.
Lorenz worked hard with the composer Richard Rodgers for 20 years before the first musical that Rodgers wrote with Oscar Hammerstein, of all people, became the ultimate Broadway sensation. Oklahaoma! may not be so well known in Germany. In the United States, however, it has become an integral part of pop culture since its premiere and certainly an integral part of school theater stages.
In Blue Moon you don’t want to miss a word that Ethan Hawke goes hard over your lips as Lorenz
No wonder that the Hawke played hard on the evening of March 31, 1943 with mixed feelings appeared at the premiere celebration, with mixed feelings. In its deepest inner Breakela bitterness and despair Whether the success of his ex-partner. Oklahoma! In his eyes, is a low -sophisticated work that is presumed to the audience and shows a transfigured America.
As soon as he runs into Rodgers (Andrew Scott) and Hammerstein (Simon Delaney), it is still full of praise and agrees with the positive reviews that arrive every minute. With Rodgers, a Marco Polo epic would like to bring a Marco Polo epic hard. But he is only interested in further cooperation when it comes to a revival of the 16-year-old Broadway hit a Connecticut Yankee.
In Harts speeches, which fluctuates between the faded words and brutal truth, Kaplow opens a dialogue about art that is followed by Linklater with great attention. The withdrawn staging wants to grant each individual line of text their due space, as well as the acting, who argue from the agitated soul of their characters – above all Hawke.
How do you realize yourself as a artist? Where do you get compromises? And when do you notice whether your own voice is still going through work? In Hart’s head, the thoughts race faster than he can formulate them. Every conversation brings new ideas for Beautifully lined up words emerged that he may never put on paper because something completely different is plagued inside: unfulfilled love.
In the footsteps of Casablanca: In Blue Moon, love and friendship collide in a painful way
The fact that hard is no longer the brightly shining star in the Broadway sky, which he was once, employs him only half as much as the arrival of Elizabeth Weinland (Margaret Qualley). He does not even come out of the raven about the bartender (Bobby Cannavale), one of his few allies in this place. However, it quickly becomes clear that Elizabeth doesn’t see the same thing in him. For her he is just a friend.
The tragedy of this unfulfilled love frames Linklater into a 100-minute countdown that takes place in real time in front of our eyes. Highly talks about the head and collar because he secretly knows what to expect at the end of the evening. It is not for nothing that he quotes one of the most tragic love films several times: Casablanca. In its staging, Linklater even takes over a decisive dynamic from the masterpiece.
Just like in Casablanca, we find ourselves in Blue Moon over large parts in a bar where lost people come together. A war rages in the background and the feelings are exaggerated. But no matter how biting, cynical and humorous, the characters react to their anecdotes: gradually penetrates Something so vulnerable To the surface that you cannot avoid.
Blue moon in the meantime appears light and carefree. It is a great pleasure to watch Hawke increase in this role that offers him so many opportunities to demonstrate his skills. Elegant and urgently he juggles Kaplov’s words and thus determines the complete rhythm of the film. At some point in Hart’s voice, however, a tremor takes place as if he were currently breaking.
Blue Moon has an annoying weakness: the film does not do a favor with its digital pictures
Linklater observes every emotion and skillfully works out individual highlight moments from the script, which Hawke give a huge stage to develop. Too bad that the digital pictures Do not allow any spatial depthso that we can also dive into this place, which is deported by the rest of the hustle and bustle in New York. Too flat, too pale – that actually takes a lot of the atmosphere.
Blue Moon has little sense of the haze in the room, the seized lights in the background and the covers of seating. Even if Hawke drums on the counter, he replies with a lack of participation. As strong and unusual as the film is in its conception, its script and acting – on a visual level, the suspicion of a filmed play creeps in too often.
We saw Blue Moon as part of the Berlinale 2025. So far, the film has not yet had a German theatrical release.