Blue Moon boasts Ethan Hawke as a sad, bisexual drunk – but it’s not enough

There are few genres that the American filmmaker Richard Linklater hasn’t sunk his teeth into. He’s made romantic dramas in the form of the Before trilogy, surrealist animated films for adults such as Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, and some of the most immortal coming-of-age movies in recent memory, among them Dazed and Confused, Slacker, Boyhood and School of Rock. Blue Moon, though, is very much a minor effort in the Linklater canon. Premiering in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, the Texan auteur’s new film – his 22nd, and the first of two due for release in this year alone – boasts a fine, quirky and courageous performance from Ethan Hawke, but it’s a stagey affair which at times becomes very stilted.

Hawke plays the legendary Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart, the writer of classic songs such as “Blue Moon” and “My Funny Valentine”. We meet him in 1943, his glory days long behind him: the story begins with Hart collapsing in a rainswept New York alleyway, washed up at 47 and in the final days of his life. We’re then whisked back in time by seven months to the premiere of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical Oklahoma!, a show that revolutionised musical theatre with its brash blend of song, dance and comedy. Hart is in the audience but leaves quietly. He heads to Sardi’s bar, his favourite watering hole, where he cuts a pathetic figure: he is effortlessly witty, but the more jokes he cracks with the friendly barman (Bobby Cannavale), the sadder he seems. He’s a bisexual alcoholic who likes to think of himself as “drunk on beauty”, but we quickly gather that he is deeply frustrated both professionally and romantically. His latest obsession is the beautiful young Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley), a would-be Broadway writer, but he’s far too wizened and old for her.

Hawke has now worked with Linklater across numerous projects – including in the Before trilogy and the Oscar-winning Boyhood – but he’s never quite played a role for him like this. Through clever effects and camera work, several inches have been shaved off Hawke’s normal height. He’s now the smallest man in the room. His hair is thinning (he tries to hide baldness with a comb-over) and his skin is wrinkled. He’ll be very sweet-natured one moment and utterly acerbic the next. Hart has been overtaken by friends and rivals who used to look up to him, most notably by the younger and far more dynamic Richard Rodgers (a dashing Andrew Scott). He’s consumed with self-pity. It’s a testament to Hawke’s skill as an actor that he makes us care about the character.

At times, the mood here skirts closer to that in one of playwright Eugene O’Neill’s cautionary barroom tales about destructive drunkards than to the effervescent world of Broadway musicals of the era. We listen as Hart swaps stories with New Yorker writer EB White (Patrick Kennedy), whom he admires, or chatters away about his love of Casablanca with the barman. But Hart is no Bogart, and Elizabeth is refusing to be his Ingrid Bergman.

The impressive Qualley gets the film’s best monologue, telling a lengthy, tragicomic story about a sexual misadventure with a young jock. Hart is besotted by her, but she regards him only as someone to gossip with and confide in, not as a potential lover. Plus, her eye is on the main prize, and she’s only using Hart to advance her career.

Linklater skilfully evokes the Broadway milieu of the 1940s in all its brittle wit and elegance. The film has plenty of clever dialogue, too, with sharp jokes about everything from Frank Sinatra to Stuart Little. The problem, though, is that the longer we spend in the bar with Hart, the more claustrophobic and dispiriting the storytelling becomes.

Dir: Richard Linklater; Starring: Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Andrew Scott; 100 mins

‘Blue Moon’ is a world premiere in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, and will be released in UK cinemas later in the year