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Separating from the more prominent colleague in a entertainment partnership is a hazardous endeavor. Comedian Larry David did it. The same for Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this clever and deeply sorrowful intimate film from writer the writer Robert Kaplow and helmer the director Richard Linklater narrates the almost agonizing account of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with flamboyant genius, an notable toupee and fake smallness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is often digitally shrunk in size – but is also occasionally recorded standing in an unseen pit to gaze upward sadly at heightened personas, confronting Hart's height issue as José Ferrer in the past acted the petite Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Motifs

Hawke gets big, world-weary laughs with Hart’s riffs on the subtle queer themes of the classic Casablanca and the overly optimistic stage show he recently attended, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he acidly calls it Okla-homo. The sexuality of Lorenz Hart is complex: this picture effectively triangulates his homosexuality with the straight persona invented for him in the 1948 theater piece Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney portraying Lorenz Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of dual attraction from Hart's correspondence to his protege: young Yale student and aspiring set designer Elizabeth Weiland, played here with carefree youthful femininity by actress Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the renowned musical theater lyricist-composer pair with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was accountable for incomparable songs like The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But annoyed at the lyricist's addiction, inconsistency and melancholic episodes, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and teamed up with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to write the musical Oklahoma! and then a raft of stage and screen smashes.

Emotional Depth

The movie envisions the deeply depressed Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s opening night Manhattan spectators in 1943, observing with envious despair as the show proceeds, loathing its insipid emotionality, detesting the exclamation mark at the conclusion of the name, but heartsinkingly aware of how lethally effective it is. He realizes a success when he views it – and perceives himself sinking into failure.

Before the break, Lorenz Hart sadly slips away and heads to the tavern at Sardi’s where the rest of the film occurs, and anticipates the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! cast to show up for their post-show celebration. He is aware it is his performance responsibility to congratulate Richard Rodgers, to act as if things are fine. With polished control, actor Andrew Scott portrays Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what both are aware is Hart’s humiliation; he gives a pacifier to his ego in the guise of a brief assignment writing new numbers for their existing show the show A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale plays the barkeeper who in conventional manner hears compassionately to Hart’s arias of bitter despondency
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy acts as EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart inadvertently provides the concept for his youth literature the book Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley plays the character Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Ivy League pupil with whom the film conceives Lorenz Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in adoration

Lorenz Hart has already been jilted by Richard Rodgers. Undoubtedly the universe can’t be so cruel as to cause him to be spurned by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley ruthlessly portrays a young woman who wants Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can disclose her experiences with boys – as well of course the Broadway power broker who can promote her occupation.

Acting Excellence

Hawke demonstrates that Hart partly takes voyeuristic pleasure in hearing about these boys but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Weiland and the picture reveals to us a factor seldom addressed in films about the domain of theater music or the movies: the awful convergence between professional and romantic failure. Yet at a certain point, Lorenz Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has achieved will persist. It’s a terrific performance from Ethan Hawke. This could be a stage musical – but who shall compose the numbers?

The film Blue Moon was shown at the London film festival; it is available on 17 October in the US, 14 November in the Britain and on 29 January in the land down under.