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Separating from the more famous collaborator in a performance partnership is a hazardous endeavor. Comedian Larry David experienced it. The same for Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this witty and heartbreakingly sad chamber piece from writer the writer Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater recounts the all but unbearable tale of musical theater lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his separation from Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with theatrical excellence, an dreadful hairpiece and artificial shortness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is frequently technologically minimized in size – but is also occasionally recorded placed in an off-camera hole to look up poignantly at more statuesque figures, facing Hart's height issue as actor José Ferrer once played the small-statured Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Motifs

Hawke gets big, world-weary laughs with Hart’s riffs on the subtle queer themes of the classic Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat stage show he recently attended, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-gay. The sexual identity of Lorenz Hart is complex: this picture effectively triangulates his gayness with the heterosexual image created for him in the 1948 musical the musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney playing Lorenz Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart's correspondence to his young apprentice: college student at Yale and budding theater artist Elizabeth Weiland, played here with uninhibited maidenly charm by the performer Margaret Qualley.

As part of the famous New York theater composing duo with composer Rodgers, Hart was in charge of incomparable songs like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But frustrated by Hart’s alcoholism, inconsistency and melancholic episodes, Rodgers broke with him and joined forces with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to write the show Oklahoma! and then a multitude of theater and film hits.

Sentimental Layers

The picture conceives the profoundly saddened Lorenz Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s premiere Manhattan spectators in 1943, gazing with covetous misery as the performance continues, loathing its insipid emotionality, hating the exclamation point at the conclusion of the name, but heartsinkingly aware of how lethally effective it is. He understands a smash when he views it – and senses himself falling into unsuccessfulness.

Before the intermission, Hart miserably ducks out and makes his way to the tavern at the establishment Sardi's where the balance of the picture occurs, and expects the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! company to appear for their after-party. He is aware it is his entertainment obligation to congratulate Rodgers, to feign things are fine. With smooth moderation, the performer Andrew Scott portrays Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what both are aware is the lyricist's shame; he gives a pacifier to his pride in the form of a short-term gig composing fresh songs for their current production the show A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• Bobby Cannavale portrays the barman who in traditional style listens sympathetically to Hart's monologues of acerbic misery
• Patrick Kennedy portrays author EB White, to whom Hart inadvertently provides the concept for his kids' story the book Stuart Little
• Qualley plays Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale attendee with whom the film imagines Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in adoration

Lorenz Hart has already been jilted by Richard Rodgers. Surely the world couldn't be that harsh as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Qualley ruthlessly portrays a girl who desires Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can disclose her exploits with guys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can advance her profession.

Standout Roles

Hawke reveals that Lorenz Hart partly takes spectator's delight in hearing about these boys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Elizabeth Weiland and the film informs us of an aspect seldom addressed in movies about the world of musical theatre or the films: the awful convergence between career and love defeat. Nevertheless at a certain point, Hart is defiantly aware that what he has achieved will endure. It's a magnificent acting job from Ethan Hawke. This could be a theater production – but who shall compose the songs?

The movie Blue Moon premiered at the London movie festival; it is out on October 17 in the USA, 14 November in the Britain and on the 29th of January in the land down under.