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Separating from the more prominent partner in a showbiz duo is a risky endeavor. Larry David did it. So did Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this humorous and deeply sorrowful chamber piece from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater narrates the almost agonizing account of musical theater lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. He is played with theatrical excellence, an notable toupee and fake smallness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally shrunk in height – but is also sometimes filmed positioned in an off-camera hole to stare up wistfully at more statuesque figures, facing Hart’s vertical challenge as José Ferrer once played the small-statured Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Elements

Hawke gets substantial, jaded humor with the character's witty comments on the concealed homosexuality of the classic Casablanca and the excessively cheerful stage show he’s just been to see, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he bitingly labels it Okla-queer. The sexuality of Lorenz Hart is complex: this film clearly contrasts his queer identity with the non-queer character invented for him in the 1948 stage show Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney portraying Lorenz Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexuality from Hart's correspondence to his protégée: youthful Yale attendee and would-be stage designer the character Elizabeth Weiland, played here with heedless girlishness by the performer Margaret Qualley.

As part of the renowned musical theater lyricist-composer pair with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was accountable for unparalleled tunes like The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But frustrated by Hart's drinking problem, unreliability and depressive outbursts, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and partnered with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to create the musical Oklahoma! and then a series of stage and screen smashes.

Psychological Complexity

The picture envisions the severely despondent Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s first-night NYC crowd in 1943, gazing with covetous misery as the show proceeds, despising its mild sappiness, hating the exclamation point at the end of the title, but dishearteningly conscious of how lethally effective it is. He realizes a smash when he sees one – and perceives himself sinking into failure.

Prior to the break, Lorenz Hart miserably ducks out and makes his way to the pub at the establishment Sardi's where the balance of the picture occurs, and expects the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! company to arrive for their following-event gathering. He is aware it is his entertainment obligation to congratulate Rodgers, to pretend things are fine. With smooth moderation, the performer Andrew Scott portrays Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what each understands is Hart's embarrassment; he provides a consolation to his pride in the appearance of a short-term gig composing fresh songs for their ongoing performance the show A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale acts as the barkeeper who in conventional manner listens sympathetically to Hart's monologues of bitter despondency
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy portrays EB White, to whom Hart accidentally gives the idea for his kids' story the book Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley acts as the character Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale student with whom the movie imagines Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in love

Lorenz Hart has previously been abandoned by Rodgers. Surely the world wouldn't be that brutal as to cause him to be spurned by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley mercilessly depicts a girl who wishes Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can reveal her exploits with boys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can promote her occupation.

Acting Excellence

Hawke demonstrates that Hart partly takes spectator's delight in learning of these young men but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Weiland and the film reveals to us something rarely touched on in pictures about the world of musical theatre or the cinema: the dreadful intersection between career and love defeat. Nevertheless at some level, Lorenz Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has accomplished will survive. It’s a terrific performance from Ethan Hawke. This may turn into a stage musical – but who shall compose the songs?

The film Blue Moon screened at the London cinema festival; it is released on the 17th of October in the US, the 14th of November in the Britain and on the 29th of January in Australia.