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Breaking up from the more prominent partner in a performance partnership is a hazardous affair. Comedian Larry David went through it. The same for Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this humorous and heartbreakingly sad intimate film from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and filmmaker Richard Linklater recounts the all but unbearable story of Broadway lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his breakup from Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with theatrical excellence, an notable toupee and artificial shortness by Ethan Hawke, who is regularly technologically minimized in size – but is also at times recorded standing in an unseen pit to gaze upward sadly at heightened personas, addressing the lyricist's stature problem as actor José Ferrer in the past acted the petite artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Elements

Hawke gets large, cynical chuckles with Hart’s riffs on the concealed homosexuality of the movie Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he recently attended, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he bitingly labels it Okla-queer. The orientation of Lorenz Hart is complicated: this movie skillfully juxtaposes his queer identity with the non-queer character created for him in the 1948 theater piece the production Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney acting as Lorenz Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of dual attraction from Hart’s letters to his protégée: college student at Yale and would-be stage designer Weiland, acted in this movie with uninhibited maidenly charm by the performer Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the legendary musical theater lyricist-composer pair with composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was in charge of unparalleled tunes like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart's drinking problem, inconsistency and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers ended their partnership and teamed up with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the musical Oklahoma! and then a raft of live and cinematic successes.

Emotional Depth

The movie conceives the profoundly saddened Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s opening night NYC crowd in 1943, observing with jealous anguish as the performance continues, loathing its bland sentimentality, abhorring the exclamation mark at the finish of the heading, but heartsinkingly aware of how devastatingly successful it is. He realizes a success when he views it – and senses himself falling into defeat.

Even before the interval, Lorenz Hart miserably ducks out and heads to the tavern at the establishment Sardi's where the rest of the film takes place, and anticipates the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! company to show up for their following-event gathering. He knows it is his entertainment obligation to praise Rodgers, to act as if all is well. With suave restraint, the performer Andrew Scott acts as Richard Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what they both know is the lyricist's shame; he provides a consolation to his self-esteem in the form of a temporary job composing fresh songs for their existing show the show A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Bobby Cannavale portrays the barkeeper who in traditional style attends empathetically to the character's soliloquies of acerbic misery
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy portrays EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart unintentionally offers the notion for his children’s book the book Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley portrays Elizabeth Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Yale attendee with whom the film imagines Lorenz Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in love

Hart has earlier been rejected by Rodgers. Certainly the world couldn't be that harsh as to have him dumped by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley ruthlessly portrays a girl who desires Lorenz Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can disclose her exploits with young men – as well of course the showbiz connection who can promote her occupation.

Acting Excellence

Hawke shows that Lorenz Hart partly takes observational satisfaction in listening to these guys but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Elizabeth Weiland and the film informs us of a factor seldom addressed in movies about the world of musical theatre or the movies: the terrible overlap between career and love defeat. Nevertheless at a certain point, Lorenz Hart is defiantly aware that what he has achieved will survive. It's a magnificent acting job from Hawke. This could be a stage musical – but who would create the tunes?

Blue Moon screened at the London cinema festival; it is available on the 17th of October in the USA, 14 November in the United Kingdom and on the 29th of January in the Australian continent.