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Parting ways from the better-known partner in a showbiz double act is a risky business. Comedian Larry David went through it. So did Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this witty and profoundly melancholic small-scale drama from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and helmer the director Richard Linklater recounts the all but unbearable account of songwriter for Broadway Lorenz Hart right after his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. He is played with flamboyant genius, an dreadful hairpiece and artificial shortness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is regularly technologically minimized in stature – but is also sometimes filmed standing in an hidden depression to stare up wistfully at more statuesque figures, confronting the lyricist's stature problem as José Ferrer in the past acted the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Themes

Hawke gets big, world-weary laughs with the character's witty comments on the subtle queer themes of the classic Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he recently attended, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-homo. The orientation of Hart is multifaceted: this picture effectively triangulates his queer identity with the non-queer character created for him in the 1948 stage show Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney playing Lorenz Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart’s letters to his protege: youthful Yale attendee and would-be stage designer the character Elizabeth Weiland, acted in this movie with carefree youthful femininity by Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the famous New York theater songwriting team with composer Rodgers, Hart was in charge of unparalleled tunes like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart's drinking problem, inconsistency and depressive outbursts, Rodgers broke with him and partnered with Oscar Hammerstein II to write the show Oklahoma! and then a raft of live and cinematic successes.

Sentimental Layers

The film envisions the profoundly saddened Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s first-night Manhattan spectators in the year 1943, observing with covetous misery as the performance continues, loathing its mild sappiness, hating the punctuation mark at the end of the title, but heartsinkingly aware of how devastatingly successful it is. He understands a smash when he views it – and perceives himself sinking into unsuccessfulness.

Prior to the break, Lorenz Hart miserably ducks out and makes his way to the tavern at Sardi’s where the remainder of the movie unfolds, and expects the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! cast to arrive for their after-party. He knows it is his performance responsibility to congratulate Richard Rodgers, to act as if all is well. With polished control, Andrew Scott acts as Richard Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what each understands is the lyricist's shame; he provides a consolation to his self-esteem in the form of a brief assignment writing new numbers for their ongoing performance A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• Bobby Cannavale acts as the bartender who in conventional manner hears compassionately to Hart's monologues of bitter despondency
• Actor Patrick Kennedy portrays author EB White, to whom Hart unintentionally offers the idea for his kids' story the book Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley plays Elizabeth Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale attendee with whom the picture imagines Lorenz Hart to be intricately and masochistically in affection

Hart has already been jilted by Richard Rodgers. Certainly the world can’t be so cruel as to have him dumped by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a young woman who wants Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can confide her adventures with young men – as well of course the Broadway power broker who can advance her profession.

Performance Highlights

Hawke shows that Hart somewhat derives observational satisfaction in learning of these boys but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Elizabeth Weiland and the film informs us of a factor seldom addressed in pictures about the world of musical theatre or the movies: the awful convergence between occupational and affectionate loss. Yet at one stage, Lorenz Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has attained will endure. It’s a terrific performance from Ethan Hawke. This may turn into a live show – but who would create the tunes?

The film Blue Moon was shown at the London cinema festival; it is out on 17 October in the United States, 14 November in the United Kingdom and on the 29th of January in Australia.