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Separating from the more prominent partner in a showbiz partnership is a dangerous business. Larry David went through it. So did Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this clever and heartbreakingly sad chamber piece from screenwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater narrates the almost agonizing story of Broadway lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. He is played with flamboyant genius, an dreadful hairpiece and artificial shortness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is frequently technologically minimized in size – but is also sometimes filmed standing in an hidden depression to gaze upward sadly at more statuesque figures, addressing Hart’s vertical challenge as José Ferrer in the past acted the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Motifs

Hawke achieves substantial, jaded humor with Hart’s riffs on the concealed homosexuality of the film Casablanca and the excessively cheerful stage show he’s just been to see, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-gay. The sexuality of Lorenz Hart is multifaceted: this picture effectively triangulates his homosexuality with the heterosexual image fabricated for him in the 1948 stage show Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney portraying Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart’s letters to his protégée: college student at Yale and budding theater artist the character Elizabeth Weiland, acted in this movie with heedless girlishness by the performer Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the renowned Broadway composing duo with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was in charge of incomparable songs like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But exasperated with Hart's drinking problem, unreliability and depressive outbursts, Richard Rodgers broke with him and partnered with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the show Oklahoma! and then a multitude of live and cinematic successes.

Sentimental Layers

The movie envisions the severely despondent Lorenz Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s first-night NYC crowd in 1943, looking on with envious despair as the production unfolds, despising its mild sappiness, hating the exclamation mark at the conclusion of the name, but heartsinkingly aware of how lethally effective it is. He understands a success when he views it – and senses himself falling into failure.

Prior to the intermission, Hart sadly slips away and makes his way to the bar at Sardi’s where the balance of the picture occurs, and waits for the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! troupe to appear for their after-party. He is aware it is his performance responsibility to congratulate Rodgers, to act as if all is well. With polished control, actor Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what both are aware is Hart's embarrassment; he gives a pacifier to his self-esteem in the guise of a short-term gig creating additional tunes for their current production A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale portrays the barkeeper who in traditional style listens sympathetically to Hart's monologues of bitter despondency
• Patrick Kennedy portrays author EB White, to whom Hart inadvertently provides the idea for his children’s book the book Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley plays Elizabeth Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Ivy League pupil with whom the movie envisions Lorenz Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in affection

Lorenz Hart has previously been abandoned by Rodgers. Undoubtedly the universe wouldn't be that brutal as to cause him to be spurned by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley ruthlessly portrays a girl who desires Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can disclose her adventures with guys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can promote her occupation.

Standout Roles

Hawke demonstrates that Hart to a degree enjoys observational satisfaction in listening to these guys but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Elizabeth Weiland and the movie reveals to us a factor rarely touched on in movies about the world of musical theatre or the movies: the awful convergence between occupational and affectionate loss. Yet at some level, Lorenz Hart is defiantly aware that what he has accomplished will endure. It's a magnificent acting job from Ethan Hawke. This could be a stage musical – but who would create the numbers?

The movie Blue Moon premiered at the London movie festival; it is out on October 17 in the US, November 14 in the Britain and on the 29th of January in the Australian continent.