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Breaking up from the better-known collaborator in a performance double act is a hazardous affair. Larry David did it. So did Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this humorous and heartbreakingly sad small-scale drama from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and director Richard Linklater tells the nearly intolerable tale of songwriter for Broadway the lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his separation from Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with campy brilliance, an dreadful hairpiece and simulated diminutiveness by Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally shrunk in size – but is also at times shot positioned in an hidden depression to gaze upward sadly at heightened personas, confronting Hart’s vertical challenge as actor José Ferrer once played the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Themes

Hawke achieves large, cynical chuckles with Hart's humorous takes on the subtle queer themes of the film Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat stage show he recently attended, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-queer. The sexuality of Lorenz Hart is complicated: this film clearly contrasts his queer identity with the straight persona fabricated for him in the 1948 stage show the production Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney acting as Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart's correspondence to his protege: young Yale student and budding theater artist the character Elizabeth Weiland, portrayed in this film with uninhibited maidenly charm by the performer Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the renowned musical theater composing duo with musician Richard Rodgers, Hart was responsible for matchless numbers like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But exasperated with the lyricist's addiction, inconsistency and depressive outbursts, Rodgers severed ties with him and teamed up with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to write the show Oklahoma! and then a raft of stage and screen smashes.

Emotional Depth

The movie conceives the deeply depressed Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s premiere Manhattan spectators in the year 1943, looking on with covetous misery as the production unfolds, loathing its bland sentimentality, hating the exclamation point at the finish of the heading, but heartsinkingly aware of how devastatingly successful it is. He knows a success when he sees one – and feels himself descending into defeat.

Even before the break, Hart sadly slips away and goes to the pub at Sardi’s where the balance of the picture unfolds, and expects the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! cast to appear for their post-show celebration. He is aware it is his showbiz duty to praise Richard Rodgers, to pretend everything is all right. With smooth moderation, actor Andrew Scott acts as Richard Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what each understands is Hart’s humiliation; he offers a sop to his ego in the appearance of a short-term gig composing fresh songs for their current production the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale portrays the bartender who in traditional style listens sympathetically to Hart's monologues of vinegary despair
• Actor Patrick Kennedy acts as EB White, to whom Hart inadvertently provides the concept for his kids' story the novel Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley portrays Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale attendee with whom the movie conceives Lorenz Hart to be intricately and masochistically in adoration

Hart has previously been abandoned by Rodgers. Undoubtedly the cosmos couldn't be that harsh as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a girl who wishes Lorenz Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can reveal her exploits with guys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can promote her occupation.

Standout Roles

Hawke demonstrates that Hart somewhat derives spectator's delight in learning of these guys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Weiland and the film reveals to us a factor rarely touched on in pictures about the domain of theater music or the cinema: the terrible overlap between professional and romantic failure. However at a certain point, Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has accomplished will endure. It’s a terrific performance from Hawke. This might become a stage musical – but who shall compose the tunes?

Blue Moon premiered at the London cinema festival; it is released on the 17th of October in the US, 14 November in the Britain and on January 29 in Australia.