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Separating from the more prominent partner in a showbiz double act is a dangerous affair. Comedian Larry David experienced it. The same for Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this humorous and profoundly melancholic intimate film from screenwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and helmer the director Richard Linklater narrates the almost agonizing tale of musical theater lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with campy brilliance, an dreadful hairpiece and simulated diminutiveness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is frequently digitally reduced in height – but is also sometimes shot positioned in an off-camera hole to look up poignantly at taller characters, addressing Hart’s vertical challenge as José Ferrer in the past acted the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Motifs

Hawke achieves substantial, jaded humor with Hart’s riffs on the concealed homosexuality of the movie Casablanca and the excessively cheerful stage show he recently attended, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he bitingly labels it Okla-gay. The sexual identity of Hart is multifaceted: this movie effectively triangulates his gayness with the non-queer character invented for him in the 1948 stage show Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney portraying Lorenz Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of dual attraction from the lyricist's writings to his young apprentice: youthful Yale attendee and aspiring set designer the character Elizabeth Weiland, portrayed in this film with heedless girlishness by actress Margaret Qualley.

As part of the famous Broadway lyricist-composer pair with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was accountable for incomparable songs like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart’s alcoholism, inconsistency and gloomy fits, Rodgers broke with him and partnered with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to create the show Oklahoma! and then a series of live and cinematic successes.

Emotional Depth

The film envisions the severely despondent Lorenz Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s opening night NYC crowd in 1943, looking on with envious despair as the show proceeds, hating its bland sentimentality, hating the punctuation mark at the end of the title, but dishearteningly conscious of how devastatingly successful it is. He realizes a hit when he watches it – and senses himself falling into unsuccessfulness.

Prior to the intermission, Hart miserably ducks out and goes to the tavern at Sardi’s where the remainder of the movie takes place, and expects the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! cast to show up for their after-party. He is aware it is his showbiz duty to compliment Rodgers, to pretend all is well. With polished control, actor Andrew Scott acts as Richard Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what each understands is the lyricist's shame; he provides a consolation to his pride in the guise of a short-term gig creating additional tunes for their current production the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale plays the bartender who in traditional style hears compassionately to the character's soliloquies of bitter despondency
• Patrick Kennedy acts as EB White, to whom Hart accidentally gives the idea for his youth literature Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley acts as Elizabeth Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale student with whom the film imagines Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in affection

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Rodgers. Certainly the universe can’t be so cruel as to cause him to be spurned by Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a young woman who wishes Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can disclose her exploits with young men – as well of course the showbiz connection who can advance her profession.

Performance Highlights

Hawke reveals that Hart partly takes voyeuristic pleasure in listening to these boys but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Elizabeth Weiland and the film informs us of a factor infrequently explored in movies about the world of musical theatre or the movies: the awful convergence between occupational and affectionate loss. However at one stage, Lorenz Hart is defiantly aware that what he has attained will endure. It's an outstanding portrayal from Hawke. This might become a stage musical – but who shall compose the tunes?

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