Born To Be Blue (2016)
TOMATOMETER
AUDIENCE SCORE
Critic Consensus: Born to Be Blue benefits from a highlight-reel performance from Ethan Hawke and an impressionistic, non-hagiographic approach to Chet Baker's life and times.
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Cast
as Chet Baker
as Jane / Elaine
as Dick
as Dad
as Mom
as Officer Reid
as Danny Friedman
as Miles Davis
as Dizzy Gilespie
as Nicholas
as Janelle
as Sarah
as Florence
as Actor Dick
as Actor Dick
as Jenny
as Jenny
as Elsie Azuka
as Henry Azuka
as Italian Prison Guard
as Prothodontist
as Bassist Peter
as Sax Steve
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Critic Reviews for Born To Be Blue
All Critics (111) | Top Critics (31) | Fresh (98) | Rotten (13)
Hawke portrays Baker as a little boy lost: selfish, sweet, insecure, arrogant, impossible to live with.
Budreau, who stages several breathtaking scenes of Baker playing against the vast open sky during a visit to his parents' farm in Oklahoma, successfully gets to the root of his subject.
Hawke makes this sweeter, gentler Baker believable in a schoolgirl-diary way-this is the Baker we want to believe in when we lie back in the embrace of his trumpet sound.
Born to Be Blue doesn't pretend to have all the answers. What it does have - in addition to an immersive performance from Ethan Hawke as the cool-cat jazz man - is an emotional understanding of who Baker was, or may have been.
The film draws you deeply into Baker's fantasy world, to the point that the entreaty of his famous recording, "Let's Get Lost," almost seems like a good idea.
When Hawke's Baker finally slips out of the whiney loser persona and performs "My Funny Valentine," the scene evokes Baker's elusive melancholy and wistful torment, making the earlier fumblings worth the struggle.
Audience Reviews for Born To Be Blue
A mature romance/biopic that takes an anguishing look at the life of a self-destructive artist struggling to have his old life back after becoming a heroin addict, with Ethan Hawke conveying an exceptionally nuanced combination of arrogance, vulnerability and determination.
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Born To Be Blue Quotes
| Chet Baker: | I want my life back. |
| Chet Baker: | I want to play. All I want is to play. |
| Chet Baker: | Miles said to come back once I've lived a little. I've lived a little. |
| Chet Baker: | Why don't you come back to my place so we can sing. |