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Separating from the more famous partner in a showbiz double act is a risky business. Comedian Larry David did it. The same for Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this witty and profoundly melancholic chamber piece from screenwriter Robert Kaplow and director Richard Linklater narrates the all but unbearable story of songwriter for Broadway Lorenz Hart right after his separation from Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with theatrical excellence, an notable toupee and artificial shortness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is frequently digitally shrunk in height – but is also at times recorded positioned in an unseen pit to stare up wistfully at more statuesque figures, confronting Hart's height issue as actor José Ferrer once played the petite Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Themes

Hawke gets substantial, jaded humor with the character's witty comments on the subtle queer themes of the film Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he’s just been to see, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he bitingly labels it Okla-gay. The orientation of Hart is complex: this film skillfully juxtaposes his homosexuality with the heterosexual image invented for him in the 1948 musical the production Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney playing Lorenz Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of dual attraction from the lyricist's writings to his protege: college student at Yale and budding theater artist Elizabeth Weiland, portrayed in this film with uninhibited maidenly charm by actress Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the legendary New York theater lyricist-composer pair with composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was accountable for incomparable songs like The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart's drinking problem, unreliability and depressive outbursts, Rodgers broke with him and teamed up with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to create the show Oklahoma! and then a multitude of theater and film hits.

Emotional Depth

The picture conceives the deeply depressed Lorenz Hart in Oklahoma!’s premiere NYC crowd in 1943, gazing with jealous anguish as the production unfolds, loathing its bland sentimentality, detesting the exclamation point at the end of the title, but dishearteningly conscious of how lethally effective it is. He realizes a success when he watches it – and senses himself falling into failure.

Prior to the break, Hart sadly slips away and heads to the tavern at the venue Sardi's where the balance of the picture occurs, and expects the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! company to appear for their post-show celebration. He realizes it is his showbiz duty to compliment Rodgers, to pretend things are fine. With polished control, Andrew Scott plays Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what each understands is the lyricist's shame; he provides a consolation to his self-esteem in the appearance of a brief assignment writing new numbers for their existing show A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale acts as the bartender who in standard fashion hears compassionately to the character's soliloquies of vinegary despair
• Patrick Kennedy plays author EB White, to whom Hart accidentally gives the concept for his youth literature the novel Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley plays Elizabeth Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale student with whom the picture conceives Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in affection

Hart has earlier been rejected by Rodgers. Undoubtedly the universe wouldn't be that brutal as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley mercilessly depicts a girl who wishes Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can reveal her exploits with guys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can further her career.

Performance Highlights

Hawke demonstrates that Lorenz Hart somewhat derives spectator's delight in learning of these boys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Weiland and the film reveals to us a factor infrequently explored in films about the domain of theater music or the cinema: the awful convergence between occupational and affectionate loss. Nevertheless at one stage, Lorenz Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has attained will persist. It's a magnificent acting job from Hawke. This may turn into a live show – but who shall compose the numbers?

Blue Moon screened at the London cinema festival; it is available 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.