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Separating from the better-known collaborator in a performance double act is a risky business. Comedian Larry David did it. The same for Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this humorous and profoundly melancholic intimate film from writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker Richard Linklater recounts the almost agonizing tale of Broadway lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with flamboyant genius, an notable toupee and fake smallness by Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally shrunk in stature – but is also occasionally shot placed in an hidden depression to look up poignantly at more statuesque figures, confronting the lyricist's stature problem as actor José Ferrer in the past acted the diminutive artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Elements

Hawke earns substantial, jaded humor with Hart’s riffs on the hidden gayness of the movie Casablanca and the excessively cheerful theater production he recently attended, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he acidly calls it Okla-gay. The sexual identity of Lorenz Hart is complicated: this movie skillfully juxtaposes his homosexuality with the non-queer character invented for him in the 1948 stage show Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney playing Lorenz Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of dual attraction from the lyricist's writings to his protege: youthful Yale attendee and would-be stage designer Weiland, acted in this movie with carefree youthful femininity by actress Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the legendary musical theater composing duo with the composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was accountable for unparalleled tunes like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But frustrated by Hart's drinking problem, inconsistency and gloomy fits, Rodgers ended their partnership and partnered with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to create Oklahoma! and then a series of live and cinematic successes.

Psychological Complexity

The movie conceives the deeply depressed Lorenz Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s premiere Manhattan spectators in the year 1943, looking on with jealous anguish as the production unfolds, loathing its bland sentimentality, abhorring the punctuation mark at the end of the title, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how lethally effective it is. He understands a hit when he views it – and feels himself descending into failure.

Even before the intermission, Hart sadly slips away and goes to the pub at Sardi’s where the rest of the film takes place, and waits for the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! cast to show up for their post-show celebration. He realizes it is his performance responsibility to praise Richard Rodgers, to feign all is well. With polished control, Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what each understands is Hart’s humiliation; he provides a consolation to his self-esteem in the form of a short-term gig composing fresh songs for their ongoing performance A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale portrays the barman who in standard fashion listens sympathetically to Hart's monologues of acerbic misery
• Actor Patrick Kennedy acts as author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart inadvertently provides the notion for his children’s book the novel Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley portrays Elizabeth Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale attendee with whom the movie imagines Lorenz Hart to be intricately and masochistically in affection

Lorenz Hart has already been jilted by Richard Rodgers. Undoubtedly the universe wouldn't be that brutal as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a youthful female who wishes Lorenz Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can confide her adventures with guys – as well of course the Broadway power broker who can promote her occupation.

Performance Highlights

Hawke demonstrates that Hart partly takes voyeuristic pleasure in learning of these young men but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Elizabeth Weiland and the movie informs us of a factor infrequently explored in films about the realm of stage musicals or the cinema: the dreadful intersection between occupational and affectionate loss. Nevertheless at one stage, Lorenz Hart is defiantly aware that what he has accomplished will endure. It's an outstanding portrayal from Hawke. This could be a live show – but who will write the numbers?

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