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Parting ways from the more prominent partner in a showbiz double act is a risky endeavor. Comedian Larry David experienced it. So did Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this clever and profoundly melancholic intimate film from scriptwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and helmer the director Richard Linklater tells the almost agonizing account of musical theater lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his separation from Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with campy brilliance, an dreadful hairpiece and artificial shortness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is often digitally shrunk in stature – but is also sometimes shot positioned in an off-camera hole to look up poignantly at more statuesque figures, confronting Hart's height issue as actor José Ferrer in the past acted the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Themes

Hawke gets large, cynical chuckles with Hart's humorous takes on the concealed homosexuality of the movie Casablanca and the excessively cheerful stage show he’s just been to see, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-gay. The sexual identity of Lorenz Hart is complex: this movie effectively triangulates his gayness with the straight persona created for him in the 1948 musical the musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney acting as Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of dual attraction from the lyricist's writings to his protege: young Yale student and aspiring set designer Weiland, played here with uninhibited maidenly charm by Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the famous musical theater songwriting team with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was in charge of unparalleled tunes like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But frustrated by the lyricist's addiction, inconsistency and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers broke with him and teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II to write Oklahoma! and then a raft of theater and film hits.

Psychological Complexity

The picture envisions the profoundly saddened Lorenz Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s opening night NYC crowd in the year 1943, gazing with envious despair as the production unfolds, hating its bland sentimentality, hating the punctuation mark at the end of the title, but heartsinkingly aware of how devastatingly successful it is. He understands a hit when he views it – and senses himself falling into unsuccessfulness.

Even before the break, Hart unhappily departs and heads to the bar at Sardi’s where the remainder of the movie occurs, and expects the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! cast to arrive for their post-show celebration. He realizes it is his performance responsibility to compliment Rodgers, to act as if all is well. With polished control, the performer Andrew Scott plays Richard Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what both are aware is the lyricist's shame; he gives a pacifier to his pride in the form of a short-term gig writing new numbers for their existing show the show A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• Bobby Cannavale plays the bartender who in traditional style listens sympathetically to Hart's monologues of vinegary despair
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy acts as EB White, to whom Hart accidentally gives the notion for his kids' story Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley plays Elizabeth Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Ivy League pupil with whom the picture imagines Lorenz Hart to be intricately and masochistically in love

Hart has already been jilted by Richard Rodgers. Undoubtedly the cosmos couldn't be that harsh as to get him jilted by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a girl who wishes Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can confide her adventures with young men – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can promote her occupation.

Performance Highlights

Hawke shows that Lorenz Hart partly takes observational satisfaction in hearing about these guys but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Weiland and the film tells us about a factor seldom addressed in films about the domain of theater music or the films: the dreadful intersection between professional and romantic failure. Nevertheless at a certain point, Lorenz Hart is defiantly aware that what he has achieved will endure. It’s a terrific performance from Ethan Hawke. This could be a live show – but who shall compose the tunes?

The movie Blue Moon was shown at the London cinema festival; it is available on 17 October in the United States, November 14 in the United Kingdom and on January 29 in Australia.