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Breaking up from the more prominent collaborator in a entertainment duo is a risky affair. Comedian Larry David did it. So did Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this clever and profoundly melancholic intimate film from screenwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker the director Richard Linklater recounts the all but unbearable account of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. He is played with campy brilliance, an notable toupee and artificial shortness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is regularly technologically minimized in stature – but is also sometimes recorded standing in an off-camera hole to look up poignantly at more statuesque figures, addressing the lyricist's stature problem as actor José Ferrer previously portrayed the petite artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Motifs

Hawke earns big, world-weary laughs with the character's witty comments on the subtle queer themes of the movie Casablanca and the overly optimistic theater production he just watched, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he acidly calls it Okla-homo. The sexuality of Hart is complicated: this movie skillfully juxtaposes his queer identity with the heterosexual image created for him in the 1948 musical the musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney portraying Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart's correspondence to his protégée: youthful Yale attendee and budding theater artist Weiland, portrayed in this film with heedless girlishness by the performer Margaret Qualley.

As part of the renowned New York theater composing duo with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was responsible for unparalleled tunes like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But annoyed at the lyricist's addiction, undependability and gloomy fits, Rodgers severed ties with him and partnered with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the show Oklahoma! and then a multitude of stage and screen smashes.

Sentimental Layers

The picture imagines the severely despondent Lorenz Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s premiere Manhattan spectators in 1943, looking on with covetous misery as the show proceeds, hating its insipid emotionality, detesting the punctuation mark at the end of the title, but heartsinkingly aware of how lethally effective it is. He realizes a hit when he watches it – and senses himself falling into unsuccessfulness.

Prior to the interval, Lorenz Hart miserably ducks out and goes to the tavern at the venue Sardi's where the rest of the film unfolds, and waits for the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! cast to arrive for their after-party. He knows it is his performance responsibility to compliment Richard Rodgers, to feign all is well. With polished control, actor Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what both are aware is Hart's embarrassment; he offers a sop to his self-esteem in the appearance of a temporary job creating additional tunes for their current production the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale plays the barman who in conventional manner listens sympathetically to Hart's monologues of vinegary despair
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy acts as author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart unintentionally offers the idea for his children’s book Stuart Little
• Qualley portrays the character Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Yale student with whom the picture envisions Lorenz Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in love

Hart has previously been abandoned by Rodgers. Certainly the universe wouldn't be that brutal as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley mercilessly depicts a young woman who desires Lorenz Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can reveal her exploits with guys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can promote her occupation.

Performance Highlights

Hawke demonstrates that Hart somewhat derives observational satisfaction in hearing about these guys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Weiland and the picture informs us of something rarely touched on in movies about the realm of stage musicals or the cinema: the awful convergence between career and love defeat. Nevertheless at one stage, Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has accomplished will endure. It's an outstanding portrayal from Hawke. This might become a theater production – but who would create the songs?

Blue Moon was shown at the London film festival; it is available on October 17 in the United States, November 14 in the United Kingdom and on January 29 in the land down under.