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Breaking up from the more prominent colleague in a showbiz duo is a risky endeavor. Comedian Larry David went through it. So did Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this humorous and deeply sorrowful chamber piece from screenwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker the director Richard Linklater recounts the nearly intolerable account of Broadway lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his split from composer Richard Rodgers. He is played with theatrical excellence, an unspeakable combover and simulated diminutiveness by Ethan Hawke, who is frequently technologically minimized in size – but is also at times filmed positioned in an unseen pit to look up poignantly at heightened personas, addressing Hart's height issue as José Ferrer once played the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Motifs

Hawke earns big, world-weary laughs with Hart's humorous takes on the concealed homosexuality of the classic Casablanca and the overly optimistic stage show he’s just been to see, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-gay. The sexual identity of Hart is multifaceted: this movie skillfully juxtaposes his gayness with the straight persona fabricated for him in the 1948 musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney acting as Lorenz Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexuality from Hart’s letters to his young apprentice: young Yale student and would-be stage designer Weiland, portrayed in this film with heedless girlishness by actress Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the renowned New York theater composing duo with musician Richard Rodgers, Hart was accountable for incomparable songs like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart's drinking problem, inconsistency and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and teamed up with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to write the musical Oklahoma! and then a series of live and cinematic successes.

Sentimental Layers

The film imagines the severely despondent Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s opening night Manhattan spectators in the year 1943, gazing with envious despair as the performance continues, loathing its insipid emotionality, detesting the exclamation mark at the conclusion of the name, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how devastatingly successful it is. He realizes a hit when he views it – and senses himself falling into failure.

Prior to the break, Hart sadly slips away and goes to the pub at the establishment Sardi's where the remainder of the movie occurs, and waits for the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! company to arrive for their after-party. He is aware it is his showbiz duty to praise Rodgers, to feign everything is all right. With polished control, the performer Andrew Scott plays Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what they both know is Hart's embarrassment; he gives a pacifier to his self-esteem in the guise of a short-term gig creating additional tunes for their existing show A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale acts as the barkeeper who in conventional manner listens sympathetically to Hart's monologues 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 the character Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale attendee with whom the movie imagines Hart to be intricately and masochistically in adoration

Hart has previously been abandoned by Rodgers. Certainly the world couldn't be that harsh as to get him jilted by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley mercilessly depicts a girl who wants Lorenz Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can confide her exploits with guys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can advance her profession.

Performance Highlights

Hawke shows that Lorenz Hart somewhat derives observational satisfaction in learning of these guys but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Elizabeth Weiland and the picture informs us of something rarely touched on in films about the domain of theater music or the films: the terrible overlap between career and love defeat. Nevertheless at a certain point, Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has attained will endure. It’s a terrific performance from Hawke. This could be a live show – but who shall compose 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 29 January in Australia.