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Breaking up from the more prominent collaborator in a showbiz double act is a dangerous affair. Comedian Larry David experienced it. The same for Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this witty and profoundly melancholic intimate film from screenwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and director Richard Linklater tells the nearly intolerable tale of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his split from composer Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with campy brilliance, an unspeakable combover and artificial shortness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally shrunk in size – but is also sometimes shot placed in an unseen pit to stare up wistfully at more statuesque figures, facing Hart’s vertical challenge as José Ferrer once played the petite Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Elements

Hawke earns big, world-weary laughs with Hart's humorous takes on the concealed homosexuality of the classic Casablanca and the overly optimistic stage show he’s just been to see, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-homo. The sexuality of Hart is multifaceted: this picture clearly contrasts his gayness with the straight persona created for him in the 1948 theater piece the musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney portraying Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart’s letters to his young apprentice: youthful Yale attendee and would-be stage designer Elizabeth Weiland, portrayed in this film with heedless girlishness by actress Margaret Qualley.

As part of the renowned Broadway lyricist-composer pair with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was accountable for unparalleled tunes like The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But frustrated by the lyricist's addiction, undependability and gloomy fits, Rodgers ended their partnership and teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II to create Oklahoma! and then a multitude of stage and screen smashes.

Emotional Depth

The picture imagines the profoundly saddened Hart in Oklahoma!’s opening night New York audience in the year 1943, observing with jealous anguish as the performance continues, loathing its bland sentimentality, hating the punctuation mark at the end of the title, but dishearteningly conscious of how extremely potent it is. He understands a hit when he views it – and senses himself falling into defeat.

Even before the break, Hart unhappily departs and makes his way to the bar at Sardi’s where the balance of the picture takes place, and anticipates the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! troupe to arrive for their post-show celebration. He knows it is his showbiz duty to praise Rodgers, to pretend everything is all right. With smooth moderation, actor Andrew Scott plays Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what each understands is the lyricist's shame; he gives a pacifier to his pride in the guise of a brief assignment creating additional tunes for their existing show A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale acts as the barkeeper who in conventional manner hears compassionately to the character's soliloquies of vinegary despair
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy acts as EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart unintentionally offers the concept for his children’s book the book Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley plays Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale attendee with whom the film imagines Lorenz Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in adoration

Hart has previously been abandoned by Richard Rodgers. Undoubtedly the world can’t be so cruel as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley pitilessly acts a youthful female who desires Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can disclose her exploits with young men – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can promote her occupation.

Acting Excellence

Hawke reveals that Hart somewhat derives voyeuristic pleasure in learning of these young men but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Weiland and the movie informs us of an aspect seldom addressed in films about the domain of theater music or the movies: the awful convergence between career and love defeat. However at some level, Lorenz Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has accomplished will persist. It’s a terrific performance from Hawke. This may turn into a live show – but who shall compose the numbers?

Blue Moon premiered at the London movie festival; it is available on the 17th of October in the US, 14 November in the Britain and on January 29 in the Australian continent.