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Separating from the more prominent colleague in a entertainment partnership is a hazardous endeavor. Comedian Larry David experienced it. The same for Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this witty and profoundly melancholic chamber piece from writer Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater tells the nearly intolerable account of musical theater lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his split from Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with flamboyant genius, an notable toupee and fake smallness by Ethan Hawke, who is often technologically minimized in stature – but is also at times filmed standing in an unseen pit to stare up wistfully at taller characters, confronting the lyricist's stature problem as actor José Ferrer previously portrayed the small-statured Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Motifs

Hawke earns substantial, jaded humor with Hart’s riffs on the subtle queer themes of the film Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he just watched, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he bitingly labels it Okla-queer. The sexuality of Lorenz Hart is multifaceted: this movie effectively triangulates his homosexuality with the straight persona fabricated for him in the 1948 stage show the production Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney portraying Lorenz Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart’s letters to his protégée: young Yale student and budding theater artist the character Elizabeth Weiland, played here with carefree youthful femininity by actress Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the famous New York theater songwriting team with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was responsible for unparalleled tunes like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But exasperated with Hart's drinking problem, inconsistency and melancholic episodes, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and partnered with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to create Oklahoma! and then a series of live and cinematic successes.

Sentimental Layers

The film envisions the severely despondent Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s opening night Manhattan spectators in 1943, gazing with jealous anguish as the production unfolds, despising its mild sappiness, hating the punctuation mark at the finish of the heading, but dishearteningly conscious of how extremely potent it is. He understands a success when he watches it – and feels himself descending into defeat.

Before the interval, Hart unhappily departs and makes his way to the tavern at the establishment Sardi's where the remainder of the movie takes place, and waits for the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! troupe to arrive for their after-party. He realizes it is his performance responsibility to compliment Rodgers, to pretend everything is all right. With smooth moderation, the performer Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what both are aware is Hart’s humiliation; he offers a sop to his self-esteem in the form of a short-term gig composing fresh songs for their existing show the show A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• Bobby Cannavale plays the bartender who in traditional style attends empathetically to the character's soliloquies of vinegary despair
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy portrays EB White, to whom Hart unintentionally offers the concept for his kids' story Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley acts as Elizabeth Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale attendee with whom the movie imagines Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in adoration

Hart has previously been abandoned by Richard Rodgers. Undoubtedly the world couldn't be that harsh as to get him jilted by Weiland as well? But Qualley ruthlessly portrays a youthful female who wants Lorenz Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can disclose her adventures with boys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can advance her profession.

Acting Excellence

Hawke reveals that Lorenz Hart somewhat derives observational satisfaction in learning of these boys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Weiland and the picture informs us of a factor rarely touched on in movies about the world of musical theatre or the movies: the awful convergence between professional and romantic failure. Nevertheless at some level, Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has achieved will endure. It's an outstanding portrayal from Ethan Hawke. This could be a live show – but who will write the numbers?

Blue Moon screened at the London movie festival; it is out on the 17th of October in the USA, November 14 in the UK and on January 29 in Australia.