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Parting ways from the more prominent partner in a performance double act is a hazardous affair. Larry David did it. Likewise Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this clever and heartbreakingly sad intimate film from screenwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and director Richard Linklater recounts the almost agonizing story of Broadway lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with campy brilliance, an unspeakable combover and artificial shortness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally shrunk in size – but is also at times filmed placed in an hidden depression to look up poignantly at taller characters, confronting Hart’s vertical challenge as José Ferrer previously portrayed the petite Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Elements

Hawke gets substantial, jaded humor with the character's witty comments on the concealed homosexuality of the film Casablanca and the excessively cheerful musical he’s just been to see, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he bitingly labels it Okla-homo. The sexuality of Lorenz Hart is complex: this picture skillfully juxtaposes his gayness with the straight persona invented for him in the 1948 musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney acting as Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexuality from the lyricist's writings to his young apprentice: young Yale student and would-be stage designer Weiland, acted in this movie with uninhibited maidenly charm by Margaret Qualley.

As part of the famous musical theater lyricist-composer pair with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was in charge of unparalleled tunes like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But exasperated with Hart’s alcoholism, inconsistency and depressive outbursts, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and teamed up with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to compose Oklahoma! and then a raft of live and cinematic successes.

Emotional Depth

The film envisions the severely despondent Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s first-night NYC crowd in the year 1943, looking on with envious despair as the show proceeds, hating its insipid emotionality, hating the punctuation mark at the conclusion of the name, but dishearteningly conscious of how extremely potent it is. He realizes a hit when he views it – and perceives himself sinking into failure.

Prior to the intermission, Hart miserably ducks out and goes to the tavern at the establishment Sardi's where the balance of the picture unfolds, and anticipates the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! company to appear for their after-party. He knows it is his performance responsibility to praise Richard Rodgers, to act as if all is well. With smooth moderation, Andrew Scott plays Richard Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what each understands is Hart’s humiliation; he offers a sop to his pride in the form of a brief assignment composing fresh songs for their existing show the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• Bobby Cannavale acts as the barman who in traditional style attends empathetically to Hart's monologues of acerbic misery
• Actor Patrick Kennedy acts as writer EB White, to whom Hart unintentionally offers the idea for his kids' story the book Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley acts as Elizabeth Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale attendee with whom the film envisions Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in love

Hart has earlier been rejected by Richard Rodgers. Surely the world can’t be so cruel as to cause him to be spurned by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley ruthlessly portrays a girl who desires Lorenz Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can reveal her exploits with boys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can promote her occupation.

Standout Roles

Hawke reveals that Hart partly takes spectator's delight in hearing about these guys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Elizabeth Weiland and the movie reveals to us a factor rarely touched on in pictures about the domain of theater music or the cinema: the awful convergence between professional and romantic failure. Nevertheless at a certain point, Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has achieved will survive. It's a magnificent acting job from Hawke. This could be a stage musical – but who will write the numbers?

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