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Parting ways from the more famous partner in a performance duo is a dangerous business. Larry David did it. The same for Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this clever and deeply sorrowful intimate film from screenwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and director the director Richard Linklater narrates the almost agonizing account of musical theater lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. He is played with flamboyant genius, an unspeakable combover and simulated diminutiveness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is regularly technologically minimized in size – but is also occasionally filmed positioned in an unseen pit to stare up wistfully at more statuesque figures, addressing the lyricist's stature problem as actor José Ferrer once played the petite artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Motifs

Hawke achieves substantial, jaded humor with Hart's humorous takes on the concealed homosexuality of the film Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he just watched, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he bitingly labels it Okla-queer. The orientation of Hart is complex: this movie clearly contrasts his gayness with the non-queer character fabricated for him in the 1948 theater piece the production Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney playing Lorenz Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of dual attraction from the lyricist's writings to his protégée: young Yale student and would-be stage designer Weiland, acted in this movie with heedless girlishness by the performer Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the famous musical theater lyricist-composer pair with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was in charge of unparalleled tunes like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But frustrated by the lyricist's addiction, unreliability and depressive outbursts, Rodgers ended their partnership and joined forces with Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the show Oklahoma! and then a multitude of live and cinematic successes.

Sentimental Layers

The movie envisions the severely despondent Lorenz Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s first-night Manhattan spectators in 1943, gazing with covetous misery as the performance continues, loathing its mild sappiness, hating the exclamation mark at the conclusion of the name, but heartsinkingly aware of how devastatingly successful it is. He knows a smash when he sees one – and senses himself falling into failure.

Prior to the interval, Lorenz Hart miserably ducks out and heads to the pub at the venue Sardi's where the rest of the film occurs, and waits for the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! cast to appear for their after-party. He realizes it is his entertainment obligation to compliment Rodgers, to act as if everything is all right. With suave restraint, Andrew Scott plays Richard Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what both are aware is Hart’s humiliation; he provides a consolation to his pride in the guise of a temporary job composing fresh songs for their existing show the show A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• Bobby Cannavale portrays the barman who in conventional manner listens sympathetically to Hart’s arias of bitter despondency
• Patrick Kennedy plays writer EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart accidentally gives the idea for his children’s book the book Stuart Little
• Qualley plays Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Ivy League pupil with whom the film imagines Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in love

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Richard Rodgers. Undoubtedly the world wouldn't be that brutal as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a young woman who wants Lorenz Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can disclose her exploits with boys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can advance her profession.

Performance Highlights

Hawke demonstrates that Hart somewhat derives observational satisfaction in learning of these boys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Elizabeth Weiland and the picture reveals to us a factor rarely touched on in pictures about the domain of theater music or the films: the dreadful intersection between occupational and affectionate loss. Nevertheless at one stage, Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has attained will survive. It's a magnificent acting job from Hawke. This could be a stage musical – but who shall compose the numbers?

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