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Breaking up from the more prominent colleague in a entertainment duo is a hazardous business. Comedian Larry David went through it. Likewise Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this clever and profoundly melancholic intimate film from writer the writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker the director Richard Linklater narrates the nearly intolerable account of songwriter for Broadway Lorenz Hart right after his breakup from Richard Rodgers. He is played with flamboyant genius, an unspeakable combover and artificial shortness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is often digitally shrunk in size – but is also at times shot positioned in an off-camera hole to gaze upward sadly at more statuesque figures, addressing the lyricist's stature problem as actor José Ferrer previously portrayed the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Motifs

Hawke gets large, cynical chuckles with Hart’s riffs on the hidden gayness of the film Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he just watched, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he bitingly labels it Okla-queer. The sexual identity of Hart is multifaceted: this film clearly contrasts his gayness with the non-queer character created for him in the 1948 stage show the musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney acting as Lorenz Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of dual attraction from the lyricist's writings to his protege: young Yale student and would-be stage designer Weiland, portrayed in this film with heedless girlishness by actress Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the famous Broadway songwriting team with composer Rodgers, Hart was accountable for matchless numbers like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But annoyed at the lyricist's addiction, unreliability and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers ended their partnership and partnered with Oscar Hammerstein II to write Oklahoma! and then a series of stage and screen smashes.

Emotional Depth

The film envisions the deeply depressed Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s opening night New York audience in 1943, observing with envious despair as the performance continues, loathing its mild sappiness, abhorring the exclamation mark at the conclusion of the name, but dishearteningly conscious of how extremely potent it is. He understands a smash when he sees one – and senses himself falling into unsuccessfulness.

Before the break, Hart sadly slips away and makes his way to the pub at Sardi’s where the rest of the film unfolds, and anticipates the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! company to appear for their following-event gathering. He knows it is his entertainment obligation to congratulate Richard Rodgers, to pretend all is well. With suave restraint, Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what they both know is Hart's embarrassment; he gives a pacifier to his self-esteem in the appearance of a brief assignment writing new numbers for their current production the show A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale acts as the bartender who in conventional manner listens sympathetically to the character's soliloquies of acerbic misery
• Patrick Kennedy portrays EB White, to whom Hart unintentionally offers the idea for his children’s book the novel Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley plays Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale student with whom the picture conceives Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in affection

Hart has previously been abandoned by Richard Rodgers. Surely the world couldn't be that harsh as to cause him to be spurned by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley pitilessly acts a young woman who wants Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can disclose her adventures with young men – as well of course the Broadway power broker who can advance her profession.

Performance Highlights

Hawke demonstrates that Hart somewhat derives voyeuristic pleasure in listening to these boys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Elizabeth Weiland and the movie informs us of something infrequently explored in films about the realm of stage musicals or the cinema: the dreadful intersection between professional and romantic failure. Yet at a certain point, Hart is defiantly aware that what he has achieved will persist. It’s a terrific performance from Hawke. This could be a stage musical – but who shall compose the tunes?

Blue Moon was shown at the London movie festival; it is out on October 17 in the USA, November 14 in the United Kingdom and on January 29 in Australia.