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Separating from the more famous partner in a showbiz duo is a risky endeavor. Comedian Larry David experienced it. Likewise Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this humorous and profoundly melancholic intimate film from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and helmer the director Richard Linklater narrates the almost agonizing account of musical theater lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with flamboyant genius, an notable toupee and fake smallness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is frequently digitally reduced in size – but is also sometimes shot placed in an off-camera hole to stare up wistfully at more statuesque figures, confronting Hart's height issue as actor José Ferrer in the past acted the petite artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Elements

Hawke achieves big, world-weary laughs with Hart’s riffs on the subtle queer themes of the film Casablanca and the excessively cheerful stage show he just watched, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he acidly calls it Okla-gay. The orientation of Hart is multifaceted: this movie effectively triangulates his gayness with the heterosexual image created for him in the 1948 musical the musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney playing Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of bisexuality from the lyricist's writings to his young apprentice: youthful Yale attendee and aspiring set designer Elizabeth Weiland, acted in this movie with carefree youthful femininity by the performer Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the renowned musical theater songwriting team with composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was in charge of matchless numbers like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart’s alcoholism, inconsistency and melancholic episodes, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and joined forces with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to create Oklahoma! and then a multitude of theater and film hits.

Sentimental Layers

The movie conceives the severely despondent Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s premiere New York audience in 1943, gazing with envious despair as the performance continues, despising its mild sappiness, detesting the exclamation point at the conclusion of the name, but heartsinkingly aware of how lethally effective it is. He realizes a success when he sees one – and perceives himself sinking into defeat.

Even before the break, Hart miserably ducks out and heads to the bar at the establishment Sardi's where the balance of the picture occurs, and anticipates the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! company to arrive for their following-event gathering. He knows it is his entertainment obligation to praise Rodgers, to pretend things are fine. With suave restraint, Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what they both know is the lyricist's shame; he offers a sop to his pride in the guise of a temporary job writing new numbers for their current production the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale portrays the bartender who in standard fashion attends empathetically to the character's soliloquies of bitter despondency
• Patrick Kennedy portrays writer EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart accidentally gives the concept for his children’s book the novel Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley acts as the character Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale student with whom the film imagines Hart to be intricately and masochistically in affection

Lorenz Hart has previously been abandoned by Rodgers. Surely the world can’t be so cruel as to cause him to be spurned by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a youthful female who desires Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can disclose her experiences with young men – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can further her career.

Acting Excellence

Hawke reveals that Hart partly takes observational satisfaction in hearing about these guys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Elizabeth Weiland and the movie reveals to us something seldom addressed in films about the domain of theater music or the movies: the awful convergence between occupational and affectionate loss. Yet at a certain point, Hart is defiantly aware that what he has achieved will survive. It's a magnificent acting job from Hawke. This could be a theater production – but who shall compose the songs?

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