By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Richard Linklater
Starring: Andrew Scott | Bobby Cannavale | Ethan Hawke | Margaret Qualley | Patrick Kennedy
Year: 2025
Running time: 100
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32536315
Kelly says: “In a stage-play-like flow, this elegiac Richard Linklater film follows genius lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) through multiple conversations over the course of one evening. It’s occasionally brutal to watch the disease of alcoholism destroying one of America’s greatest artists, but more often, it’s uplifting and moving and inspiring to listen to him think out loud, to compose, and to argue, and to fall in love.
“The conversations with his famous writing partner Richard Rodgers are compelling, and necessary, but not the most impactful ones of the film. That just illustrates the strength of Robert Kaplow’s script, which is drawn in part on letters between Hart and Elizabeth Weiland.
“This one night with Lorenz Hart was as captivating to me as Hart was captivated by Weiland. 4.5 cats.”