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Parting ways from the more prominent partner in a performance double act is a dangerous endeavor. Comedian Larry David did it. The same for Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this clever and deeply sorrowful small-scale drama from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and director the director Richard Linklater tells the nearly intolerable tale of songwriter for Broadway the lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with theatrical excellence, an unspeakable combover and artificial shortness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is frequently digitally reduced in stature – but is also at times shot standing in an off-camera hole to stare up wistfully at more statuesque figures, confronting Hart’s vertical challenge as José Ferrer previously portrayed the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Themes

Hawke gets big, world-weary laughs with Hart’s riffs on the hidden gayness of the classic Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat stage show he recently attended, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-queer. The sexual identity of Lorenz Hart is complicated: this picture clearly contrasts his queer identity with the non-queer character invented for him in the 1948 stage show the production Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney portraying Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexuality from Hart’s letters to his protégée: young Yale student and would-be stage designer Elizabeth Weiland, played here with heedless girlishness by the performer Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the renowned Broadway composing duo with the composer Rodgers, Hart was accountable for unparalleled tunes like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But frustrated by the lyricist's addiction, unreliability and depressive outbursts, Rodgers severed ties with him and joined forces with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to compose Oklahoma! and then a series of live and cinematic successes.

Sentimental Layers

The film envisions the deeply depressed Hart in Oklahoma!’s opening night NYC crowd in the year 1943, observing with covetous misery as the production unfolds, despising its insipid emotionality, abhorring the exclamation point at the end of the title, but dishearteningly conscious of how devastatingly successful it is. He realizes a smash when he sees one – and perceives himself sinking into failure.

Even before the interval, Lorenz Hart unhappily departs and makes his way to the tavern at the establishment Sardi's where the rest of the film takes place, and anticipates the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! cast to arrive for their after-party. He knows it is his entertainment obligation to congratulate Rodgers, to feign all is well. With smooth moderation, Andrew Scott plays Richard Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what both are aware is the lyricist's shame; he offers a sop to his pride in the guise of a short-term gig creating additional tunes for their ongoing performance A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale portrays the barman who in traditional style attends empathetically to the character's soliloquies of bitter despondency
• Actor Patrick Kennedy portrays author EB White, to whom Hart accidentally gives the idea for his children’s book the book Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley portrays Elizabeth Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Ivy League pupil with whom the movie envisions Lorenz Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in affection

Lorenz Hart has previously been abandoned by Richard Rodgers. Undoubtedly the universe couldn't be that harsh as to cause him to be spurned by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley mercilessly depicts a young woman who wishes Lorenz Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can confide her exploits with young men – as well of course the showbiz connection who can further her career.

Standout Roles

Hawke reveals that Hart to a degree enjoys observational satisfaction in listening to these boys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Weiland and the film informs us of something rarely touched on in movies about the world of musical theatre or the movies: the dreadful intersection between professional and romantic failure. Nevertheless at one stage, Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has achieved will persist. It's a magnificent acting job from Ethan Hawke. This might become a stage musical – but who would create the songs?

Blue Moon was shown at the London film festival; it is released on October 17 in the US, November 14 in the Britain and on the 29th of January in the Australian continent.