'' BLUE MOON '' FILM : REVIEW HONOURS

ONCE the reigning slacker prince and Generation X icon as famous for the women in his life as for his work, he shook off the chains of the IT Boy celebrity to become elusive ideal :

A reliably interesting, stealthily great actor, and one with a striking commitment to his signature goatee.

Hawke has razored off his familiar chin hair to play the lyricist Lorenz Hart in the new movie '' Blue Moon,'' which opens on Oct 17.

Written by Robert Kaplow and directed by Hawke's longtime collaborator Richard Linklater, it is a  portrait of desperation that largely takes place in Sardi's restaurant during one fraught, talk-and-booze-filled night.

Hart is barely holding it together. It's March 31, 1943, and a new musical - a future classic of the Great American Songbook - composed by his songwriter partner, Richard Rodgers [ they did '' Pal Joey ''  together ], is having its Broadway premiere.

The problem is that Hart didn't write the lyrics for '' Oklahoma ! '' ; Oscar Hammerstein did.

Hawke has undergone a stark transformation for the role, with a tragic combover and his height obscured to mime Hart's five-foot stature. It's the kind of makeover that stirs up awards chatter, though Hawke's performance isn't Oscar-grabbing bait.

There's a tragedy here, but Hart is complicated, and Hawke plays him with a nasty bite as well as verbal flourish.

Hart uses words to dazzle, shock and cut, but his cramped physicality suggests an alarming desiccation. Hart looks as if he's collapsing inward, like a rotting peach.

'' Blue Moon '' is about loss but, like other Hawke-Linklater movies, it is also about time.

For 40 years, Ethan Hawke has been carving out a distinct place in the American cinema, taking on a variety of roles that have challenged him as well as expectations.

With assorted accents, emotional registers and psychological states, he has played charmers, rogues, men of good conscience [ and bad ], young old souls and the perpetually boyish.

The World Students Society thanks Manohla Dargis.