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Separating from the more prominent collaborator in a showbiz double act is a hazardous business. Larry David did it. The same for Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this witty and profoundly melancholic small-scale drama from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and director the director Richard Linklater tells the almost agonizing account of musical theater lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his breakup from Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with flamboyant genius, an notable toupee and fake smallness by Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally shrunk in size – but is also occasionally recorded placed in an unseen pit to look up poignantly at more statuesque figures, addressing Hart's height issue as actor José Ferrer once played the petite Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Elements

Hawke earns large, cynical chuckles with Hart's humorous takes on the hidden gayness of the film Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat musical he’s just been to see, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he acidly calls it Okla-homo. The sexuality of Hart is multifaceted: this film clearly contrasts his gayness with the heterosexual image fabricated for him in the 1948 theater piece the production Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney playing Lorenz Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexuality from the lyricist's writings to his protege: young Yale student and aspiring set designer Weiland, acted in this movie with uninhibited maidenly charm by Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the legendary Broadway songwriting team with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was in charge of matchless numbers like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But annoyed at the lyricist's addiction, inconsistency and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers broke with him and teamed up with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the musical Oklahoma! and then a raft of stage and screen smashes.

Emotional Depth

The movie envisions the severely despondent Lorenz Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s first-night NYC crowd in 1943, gazing with jealous anguish as the performance continues, hating its bland sentimentality, abhorring the exclamation mark at the finish of the heading, but dishearteningly conscious of how extremely potent it is. He knows a success when he views it – and perceives himself sinking into failure.

Before the intermission, Lorenz Hart sadly slips away and makes his way to the pub at the establishment Sardi's where the rest of the film takes place, and expects the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! company to arrive for their following-event gathering. He knows it is his entertainment obligation to compliment Richard Rodgers, to feign all is well. With suave restraint, actor Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what both are aware is Hart's embarrassment; he offers a sop to his ego in the guise of a brief assignment composing fresh songs for their ongoing performance the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Bobby Cannavale plays the barman who in conventional manner listens sympathetically to Hart's monologues of vinegary despair
• Actor Patrick Kennedy acts as author EB White, to whom Hart inadvertently provides the concept for his children’s book the novel Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley portrays Elizabeth Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Ivy League pupil with whom the film imagines Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in love

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Richard Rodgers. Surely the universe couldn't be that harsh as to get him jilted by Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley pitilessly acts a girl who desires Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can disclose her adventures with boys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can promote her occupation.

Standout Roles

Hawke demonstrates that Hart to a degree enjoys voyeuristic pleasure in listening to these boys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Weiland and the film informs us of a factor seldom addressed in films about the realm of stage musicals or the films: the dreadful intersection between occupational and affectionate loss. However at a certain point, Lorenz Hart is defiantly aware that what he has attained will endure. It’s a terrific performance from Ethan Hawke. This could be a stage musical – but who shall compose the songs?

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