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Parting ways from the more famous partner in a performance partnership is a hazardous endeavor. Larry David went through it. Likewise Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this witty and profoundly melancholic intimate film from screenwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and director Richard Linklater tells the all but unbearable story of Broadway lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with campy brilliance, an notable toupee and simulated diminutiveness by Ethan Hawke, who is frequently digitally shrunk in height – but is also sometimes shot standing in an unseen pit to stare up wistfully at more statuesque figures, facing Hart's height issue as José Ferrer previously portrayed the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Themes

Hawke earns substantial, jaded humor with the character's witty comments on the concealed homosexuality of the film Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he’s just been to see, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he acidly calls it Okla-queer. The sexual identity of Hart is complex: this film skillfully juxtaposes his gayness with the straight persona fabricated for him in the 1948 theater piece the musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney acting as Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of bisexuality from Hart's correspondence to his protege: youthful Yale attendee and aspiring set designer Weiland, portrayed in this film with heedless girlishness by actress Margaret Qualley.

As part of the legendary New York theater lyricist-composer pair with composer Rodgers, Hart was in charge of unparalleled tunes like The Lady Is a Tramp, Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But exasperated with Hart’s alcoholism, unreliability and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers broke with him and partnered with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to create the musical Oklahoma! and then a multitude of stage and screen smashes.

Sentimental Layers

The movie imagines the severely despondent Lorenz Hart in Oklahoma!’s opening night Manhattan spectators in 1943, gazing with covetous misery as the performance continues, hating its mild sappiness, abhorring the exclamation mark at the conclusion of the name, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how devastatingly successful it is. He knows a hit when he views it – and senses himself falling into unsuccessfulness.

Even before the break, Hart unhappily departs and makes his way to the pub at Sardi’s where the balance of the picture takes place, and anticipates the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! cast to arrive for their post-show celebration. He knows it is his entertainment obligation to praise Richard Rodgers, to pretend everything is all right. With smooth moderation, actor Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what each understands is the lyricist's shame; he provides a consolation to his pride in the appearance of a temporary job composing fresh songs for their current production the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale portrays the bartender who in conventional manner listens sympathetically to Hart’s arias of vinegary despair
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy portrays author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart unintentionally offers the notion for his children’s book the novel Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley plays Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale attendee with whom the picture envisions Lorenz Hart to be intricately and masochistically in adoration

Hart has previously been abandoned by Richard Rodgers. Surely the world wouldn't be that brutal as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley mercilessly depicts a girl who desires Lorenz Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can disclose her adventures with young men – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can further her career.

Acting Excellence

Hawke demonstrates that Hart to a degree enjoys spectator's delight in listening to these young men but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Elizabeth Weiland and the picture informs us of a factor seldom addressed in pictures about the domain of theater music or the films: the awful convergence between career and love defeat. Yet at one stage, Lorenz Hart is defiantly aware that what he has attained will survive. It's a magnificent acting job from Ethan Hawke. This may turn into a theater production – but who will write the numbers?

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