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Separating from the better-known colleague in a showbiz double act is a hazardous business. Larry David did it. So did Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this clever and heartbreakingly sad intimate film from writer Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater recounts the nearly intolerable tale of Broadway lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his split from composer Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with flamboyant genius, an notable toupee and fake smallness by Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally shrunk in size – but is also sometimes shot positioned in an off-camera hole to gaze upward sadly at heightened personas, addressing Hart’s vertical challenge as actor José Ferrer previously portrayed the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Themes

Hawke gets substantial, jaded humor with the character's witty comments on the hidden gayness of the movie Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat stage show he recently attended, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he acidly calls it Okla-gay. The orientation of Lorenz Hart is complex: this film effectively triangulates his homosexuality with the heterosexual image created for him in the 1948 theater piece the production Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney playing Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of bisexuality from Hart’s letters to his young apprentice: youthful Yale attendee and aspiring set designer the character Elizabeth Weiland, acted in this movie with uninhibited maidenly charm by Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the famous musical theater lyricist-composer pair with the composer Rodgers, Hart was in charge of incomparable songs like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the number 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 the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to write the musical Oklahoma! and then a series of theater and film hits.

Sentimental Layers

The movie imagines the severely despondent Hart in Oklahoma!’s opening night New York audience in 1943, looking on with jealous anguish as the production unfolds, hating its mild sappiness, detesting the exclamation point at the conclusion of the name, but heartsinkingly aware of how extremely potent it is. He understands a hit when he sees one – and feels himself descending into failure.

Before the break, Lorenz Hart sadly slips away and heads to the bar at Sardi’s where the balance of the picture takes place, and expects the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! company to appear for their after-party. He knows it is his showbiz duty to praise Rodgers, to act as if everything is all right. With suave restraint, actor Andrew Scott portrays Richard Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what they both know is Hart’s humiliation; he offers a sop to his self-esteem in the appearance of a temporary job writing new numbers for their ongoing performance the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale plays the barman who in conventional manner hears compassionately to Hart’s arias of acerbic misery
• Patrick Kennedy plays EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart accidentally gives the concept for his children’s book the novel Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley acts as Elizabeth Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale attendee with whom the picture imagines Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in affection

Lorenz Hart has previously been abandoned by Richard Rodgers. Undoubtedly the universe couldn't be that harsh as to get him jilted by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley ruthlessly portrays a girl who wants Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can confide her experiences with boys – as well of course the Broadway power broker who can advance her profession.

Acting Excellence

Hawke shows that Lorenz Hart to a degree enjoys spectator's delight in hearing about these young men but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Elizabeth Weiland and the film informs us of an aspect rarely touched on in films about the realm of stage musicals or the cinema: the dreadful intersection between career and love defeat. Yet at a certain point, Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has achieved will survive. It's an outstanding portrayal from Hawke. This might become a stage musical – but who will write the numbers?

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