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Parting ways from the more prominent colleague in a showbiz duo is a hazardous endeavor. Comedian Larry David went through it. So did Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this humorous and deeply sorrowful small-scale drama from writer Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater recounts the almost agonizing account of songwriter for Broadway Lorenz Hart shortly following his split from Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with campy brilliance, an dreadful hairpiece and fake smallness by Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally reduced in stature – but is also occasionally filmed positioned in an hidden depression to gaze upward sadly at more statuesque figures, addressing the lyricist's stature problem as actor José Ferrer in the past acted the small-statured Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Motifs

Hawke earns big, world-weary laughs with the character's witty comments on the concealed homosexuality of the movie Casablanca and the overly optimistic stage show he’s just been to see, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he bitingly labels it Okla-homo. The sexuality of Lorenz Hart is multifaceted: this picture clearly contrasts his homosexuality with the straight persona fabricated for him in the 1948 stage show Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney portraying Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart's correspondence to his protégée: young Yale student and budding theater artist Elizabeth Weiland, portrayed in this film with carefree youthful femininity by the performer Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the renowned New York theater lyricist-composer pair with the composer Rodgers, Hart was accountable for unparalleled tunes like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart's drinking problem, undependability and melancholic episodes, Rodgers severed ties with him and partnered with Oscar Hammerstein II to write the musical Oklahoma! and then a raft of theater and film hits.

Psychological Complexity

The picture imagines the profoundly saddened Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s premiere Manhattan spectators in 1943, looking on with jealous anguish as the show proceeds, despising its bland sentimentality, hating the punctuation mark at the end of the title, but heartsinkingly aware of how extremely potent it is. He understands a smash when he watches it – and feels himself descending into defeat.

Prior to the intermission, Hart unhappily departs and goes to the pub at Sardi’s where the remainder of the movie takes place, and expects the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! cast to appear for their post-show celebration. He knows it is his entertainment obligation to praise Rodgers, to feign things are fine. With smooth moderation, Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what both are aware is Hart's embarrassment; he provides a consolation 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 only makes it worse.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale plays the bartender who in standard fashion hears compassionately to Hart’s arias of acerbic misery
• Actor Patrick Kennedy acts as author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart accidentally gives the concept for his children’s book the novel Stuart Little
• Qualley portrays Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Yale attendee with whom the film envisions Hart to be intricately and masochistically in love

Lorenz Hart has previously been abandoned by Richard Rodgers. Certainly the universe couldn't be that harsh as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley mercilessly depicts a girl who wishes Lorenz Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can disclose her adventures with boys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can advance her profession.

Performance Highlights

Hawke shows that Lorenz Hart to a degree enjoys observational satisfaction in hearing about these young men but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Weiland and the film reveals to us an aspect rarely touched on in movies about the realm of stage musicals or the films: the dreadful intersection between occupational and affectionate loss. Nevertheless at a certain point, Lorenz Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has accomplished will survive. It's a magnificent acting job from Hawke. This might become a stage musical – but who would create the songs?

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