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Separating from the more famous partner in a performance duo is a dangerous business. Larry David experienced it. Likewise Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this witty and heartbreakingly sad small-scale drama from scriptwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater narrates the all but unbearable account of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his split from composer Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with campy brilliance, an notable toupee and artificial shortness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is often technologically minimized in stature – but is also occasionally recorded standing in an unseen pit to look up poignantly at more statuesque figures, addressing the lyricist's stature problem as José Ferrer in the past acted the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Themes

Hawke achieves big, world-weary laughs with Hart’s riffs on the hidden gayness of the movie Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he’s just been to see, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-gay. The sexuality of Lorenz Hart is multifaceted: this movie clearly contrasts his homosexuality with the straight persona invented for him in the 1948 musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney portraying Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of dual attraction from the lyricist's writings to his young apprentice: youthful Yale attendee and budding theater artist Weiland, played here with carefree youthful femininity by the performer Margaret Qualley.

As part of the famous Broadway songwriting team with composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was responsible for incomparable songs like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But annoyed at the lyricist's addiction, undependability and gloomy fits, Rodgers severed ties with him and partnered with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to create the show Oklahoma! and then a raft of stage and screen smashes.

Sentimental Layers

The film imagines the deeply depressed Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s premiere New York audience in the year 1943, observing with envious despair as the show proceeds, despising its bland sentimentality, hating the exclamation mark at the conclusion of the name, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how extremely potent it is. He understands a success when he sees one – and senses himself falling into failure.

Before the intermission, Lorenz Hart unhappily departs and makes his way to the pub at Sardi’s where the balance of the picture unfolds, and waits for the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! troupe to appear for their post-show celebration. He knows it is his performance responsibility to compliment Rodgers, to pretend everything is all right. With suave restraint, the performer Andrew Scott portrays Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what each understands is the lyricist's shame; he gives a pacifier to his self-esteem in the guise of a short-term gig composing fresh songs for their ongoing performance the show A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• Bobby Cannavale plays the barkeeper who in traditional style listens sympathetically to Hart’s arias of bitter despondency
• Actor Patrick Kennedy plays author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart unintentionally offers the idea for his children’s book the novel Stuart Little
• Qualley acts as Elizabeth Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale attendee with whom the movie envisions Lorenz Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in adoration

Hart has previously been abandoned by Rodgers. Certainly the cosmos wouldn't be that brutal as to cause him to be spurned by Weiland as well? But Qualley mercilessly depicts a girl who wants Lorenz Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can disclose her adventures with guys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can further her career.

Standout Roles

Hawke reveals that Hart to a degree enjoys voyeuristic pleasure in listening to these guys but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Elizabeth Weiland and the picture reveals to us a factor infrequently explored in pictures about the domain of theater music or the movies: the awful convergence between occupational and affectionate loss. Nevertheless at some level, Hart is defiantly aware that what he has attained will persist. It’s a terrific performance from Hawke. This may turn into a theater production – but who shall compose the numbers?

Blue Moon was shown at the London film festival; it is out on 17 October in the US, the 14th of November in the UK and on 29 January in Australia.