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Parting ways from the better-known collaborator in a entertainment double act is a dangerous business. Comedian Larry David did it. The same for Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this clever and heartbreakingly sad chamber piece from writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker Richard Linklater tells the almost agonizing tale of musical theater lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his split from composer Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with campy brilliance, an notable toupee and fake smallness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is often technologically minimized in height – but is also sometimes shot standing in an unseen pit to look up poignantly at more statuesque figures, facing the lyricist's stature problem as actor José Ferrer in the past acted the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Themes

Hawke achieves substantial, jaded humor with Hart's humorous takes on the concealed homosexuality of the classic Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat stage show he’s just been to see, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-homo. The sexual identity of Lorenz Hart is multifaceted: this film clearly contrasts his queer identity with the straight persona invented for him in the 1948 musical the musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney acting as Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexuality from the lyricist's writings to his protege: college student at Yale and aspiring set designer Weiland, acted in this movie with heedless girlishness by actress Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the legendary musical theater composing duo with the composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was responsible for matchless numbers like The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But exasperated with Hart's drinking problem, undependability and melancholic episodes, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and partnered with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the show Oklahoma! and then a raft of live and cinematic successes.

Emotional Depth

The picture conceives the severely despondent Hart in Oklahoma!’s premiere New York audience in 1943, observing with covetous misery as the production unfolds, hating its insipid emotionality, detesting the punctuation mark at the conclusion of the name, but dishearteningly conscious of how extremely potent it is. He realizes a success when he watches it – and senses himself falling into defeat.

Before the break, Hart sadly slips away and goes to the tavern at Sardi’s where the remainder of the movie unfolds, and waits for the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! troupe to arrive for their post-show celebration. He is aware it is his performance responsibility to compliment Richard Rodgers, to act as if things are fine. With smooth moderation, the performer Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what both are aware is Hart's embarrassment; he gives a pacifier to his self-esteem in the form of a brief assignment creating additional tunes for their existing show A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale plays the barman who in conventional manner attends empathetically to the character's soliloquies of bitter despondency
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy portrays writer EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart accidentally gives the idea for his kids' story Stuart Little
• Qualley acts as the character Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Yale attendee with whom the picture envisions Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in affection

Lorenz Hart has previously been abandoned by Rodgers. Certainly the world couldn't be that harsh as to get him jilted by Weiland as well? But Qualley ruthlessly portrays a girl who desires Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can disclose her experiences with boys – as well of course the Broadway power broker who can further her career.

Standout Roles

Hawke shows that Lorenz Hart somewhat derives spectator's delight in listening to these boys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Elizabeth Weiland and the movie tells us about an aspect seldom addressed in pictures about the world of musical theatre or the cinema: the terrible overlap between professional and romantic failure. Yet at one stage, Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has attained will survive. It's an outstanding portrayal from Ethan Hawke. This may turn into a live show – but who will write the songs?

The film Blue Moon was shown at the London cinema festival; it is out on October 17 in the USA, 14 November in the United Kingdom and on January 29 in the land down under.