In “Born To Be Blue,” Ethan Hawke plays the heroin-addicted jazz trumpeter Chet Baker as a kind of guy version of Marilyn Monroe — breathy, fragile, a country naif struggling to stay anchored in this world instead of drifting off into the next. In a fictionalized take on Baker’s 1960s travails, the musician is seen serving a prison term in Italy then striking up a romance with the actress, Jane (Carmen Ejogo), who was to play his ex-wife in a movie. A severe beating courtesy of smack dealers costs him his front teeth and jeopardizes his career. In rebuilding mode, Baker takes his first steps back into performing with the aide of dentures, while also steering clear of the drug he believes makes him a better musician, but that could also cost him his love (Jane is an amalgam of Baker’s women) or his life. Though covering much the same ground as many another biopic about a tortured legend, writer-director Robert Budreau’s film is suffused with the soulful poignance of Baker’s melancholy music, which won the praise of Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. Hawke is endearingly tender: His boyish quality, layered beneath a level of helplessness, makes Baker’s struggle so real it’s nearly as heartbreaking as Baker’s rendition of “My Funny Valentine.”
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