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Breaking up from the more famous colleague in a showbiz partnership is a risky business. Comedian Larry David did it. So did Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this humorous and deeply sorrowful intimate film from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and helmer the director Richard Linklater narrates the nearly intolerable story of Broadway lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. He is played with campy brilliance, an unspeakable combover and artificial shortness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is frequently digitally reduced in size – but is also occasionally recorded placed in an unseen pit to gaze upward sadly at more statuesque figures, addressing Hart's height issue as José Ferrer once played the petite artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Motifs

Hawke earns substantial, jaded humor with Hart's humorous takes on the subtle queer themes of the film Casablanca and the excessively cheerful stage show he recently attended, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he acidly calls it Okla-gay. The orientation of Hart is complex: this movie clearly contrasts his gayness with the non-queer character created for him in the 1948 theater piece the musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney acting as Lorenz Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexual tendency from the lyricist's writings to his protégée: college student at Yale and aspiring set designer the character Elizabeth Weiland, portrayed in this film with heedless girlishness by actress Margaret Qualley.

As part of the famous New York theater lyricist-composer pair with the composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was responsible for incomparable songs like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But frustrated by Hart's drinking problem, inconsistency and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers broke with him and teamed up with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to write Oklahoma! and then a series of theater and film hits.

Psychological Complexity

The picture conceives the severely despondent Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s opening night New York audience in the year 1943, observing with jealous anguish as the performance continues, loathing its bland sentimentality, abhorring the exclamation point at the conclusion of the name, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how devastatingly successful it is. He knows a smash when he watches it – and perceives himself sinking into defeat.

Before the interval, Lorenz Hart sadly slips away and heads to the pub at Sardi’s where the balance of the picture takes place, and anticipates the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! company to show up for their following-event gathering. He knows it is his showbiz duty to compliment Rodgers, to pretend everything is all right. With suave restraint, Andrew Scott plays Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what they both know is Hart’s humiliation; he provides a consolation to his self-esteem in the form of a temporary job composing fresh songs for their ongoing performance A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Bobby Cannavale acts as the barman who in traditional style hears compassionately to Hart's monologues of vinegary despair
• Actor Patrick Kennedy portrays EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart unintentionally offers the notion for his children’s book the novel Stuart Little
• Qualley plays Elizabeth Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale attendee with whom the movie conceives Lorenz Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in adoration

Hart has earlier been rejected by Rodgers. Certainly the cosmos couldn't be that harsh as to cause him to be spurned by Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a youthful female who desires Lorenz Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can confide her adventures with guys – as well of course the Broadway power broker who can further her career.

Standout Roles

Hawke reveals that Lorenz Hart somewhat derives spectator's delight in learning of these guys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Weiland and the film tells us about something rarely touched on in movies about the realm of stage musicals or the films: the terrible overlap between professional and romantic failure. However at a certain point, Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has achieved will survive. It’s a terrific performance from Ethan Hawke. This may turn into a theater production – but who would create the tunes?

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