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Breaking up from the more prominent partner in a entertainment double act is a hazardous business. Larry David experienced it. So did Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this witty and profoundly melancholic chamber piece from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater narrates the almost agonizing account of Broadway lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with flamboyant genius, an notable toupee and simulated diminutiveness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally reduced in height – but is also sometimes shot standing in an hidden depression to stare up wistfully at heightened personas, confronting Hart’s vertical challenge as José Ferrer in the past acted the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Motifs

Hawke earns substantial, jaded humor with Hart’s riffs on the hidden gayness of the movie Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he’s just been to see, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-queer. The orientation of Lorenz Hart is complicated: this movie skillfully juxtaposes his homosexuality with the non-queer character fabricated for him in the 1948 theater piece the musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney acting as Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexuality from Hart's correspondence to his protege: college student at Yale and budding theater artist Elizabeth Weiland, acted in this movie with uninhibited maidenly charm by Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the legendary musical theater songwriting team with the composer Rodgers, Hart was accountable for matchless numbers like The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But frustrated by the lyricist's addiction, undependability and depressive outbursts, Rodgers ended their partnership and teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the show Oklahoma! and then a multitude of live and cinematic successes.

Emotional Depth

The picture imagines the deeply depressed Hart in Oklahoma!’s premiere New York audience in 1943, observing with covetous misery as the show proceeds, loathing its mild sappiness, detesting the punctuation mark at the finish of the heading, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how devastatingly successful it is. He understands a smash when he sees one – and senses himself falling into unsuccessfulness.

Before the intermission, Lorenz Hart unhappily departs and makes his way to the bar at the establishment Sardi's where the rest of the film occurs, and waits for the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! troupe to arrive for their post-show celebration. He realizes it is his entertainment obligation to congratulate Richard Rodgers, to act as if all is well. With suave restraint, the performer Andrew Scott portrays Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what they both know is Hart’s humiliation; he provides a consolation to his self-esteem in the guise of a temporary job composing fresh songs for their existing show the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale plays the barman who in standard fashion hears compassionately to Hart’s arias of acerbic misery
• Patrick Kennedy plays writer EB White, to whom Hart inadvertently provides the concept for his kids' story the book Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley acts as Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Yale student with whom the film conceives Lorenz Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in affection

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Rodgers. Certainly the cosmos wouldn't be that brutal as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Qualley ruthlessly portrays 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 showbiz connection who can promote her occupation.

Acting Excellence

Hawke reveals that Lorenz Hart somewhat derives voyeuristic pleasure in hearing about these guys but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Weiland and the movie tells us about an aspect seldom addressed in films about the realm of stage musicals or the films: the dreadful intersection between occupational and affectionate loss. However at a certain point, Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has attained will persist. It’s a terrific performance from Hawke. This could be a theater production – but who would create the numbers?

The movie Blue Moon screened at the London cinema festival; it is available on October 17 in the USA, 14 November in the Britain and on January 29 in Australia.