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Breaking up from the more prominent colleague in a performance double act is a dangerous business. Larry David went through it. Likewise Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this humorous and deeply sorrowful chamber piece from scriptwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker Richard Linklater narrates the all but unbearable tale of musical theater lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with theatrical excellence, an unspeakable combover and fake smallness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is often digitally shrunk in size – but is also sometimes filmed standing in an unseen pit to stare up wistfully at more statuesque figures, addressing the lyricist's stature problem as José Ferrer previously portrayed the petite artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Motifs

Hawke earns substantial, jaded humor with Hart's humorous takes on the concealed homosexuality of the movie Casablanca and the excessively cheerful stage show he just watched, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-gay. The orientation of Lorenz Hart is complicated: this film skillfully juxtaposes his gayness with the heterosexual image fabricated for him in the 1948 musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney portraying Lorenz Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of dual attraction from Hart’s letters to his protege: youthful Yale attendee and aspiring set designer Weiland, acted in this movie with carefree youthful femininity by Margaret Qualley.

As part of the famous New York theater lyricist-composer pair with composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was accountable for incomparable songs like The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But frustrated by the lyricist's addiction, unreliability and depressive outbursts, Rodgers ended their partnership and partnered with Oscar Hammerstein II to write the show Oklahoma! and then a multitude of live and cinematic successes.

Emotional Depth

The picture conceives the deeply depressed Lorenz Hart in Oklahoma!’s first-night Manhattan spectators in the year 1943, observing with covetous misery as the performance continues, loathing its bland sentimentality, detesting the exclamation point at the end of the title, but dishearteningly conscious of how devastatingly successful it is. He understands a smash when he views it – and perceives himself sinking into failure.

Before the intermission, Hart unhappily departs and goes to the bar at the venue Sardi's where the rest of the film occurs, and anticipates the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! troupe to arrive for their after-party. He realizes it is his showbiz duty to compliment Richard Rodgers, to feign everything is all right. With smooth moderation, actor Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what both are aware is Hart’s humiliation; he gives a pacifier to his self-esteem in the form of a temporary job composing fresh songs for their ongoing performance A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• Bobby Cannavale portrays the barkeeper who in standard fashion hears compassionately to Hart’s arias of bitter despondency
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy acts as author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart inadvertently provides the idea for his children’s book the book Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley plays Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale attendee with whom the movie envisions Lorenz Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in affection

Hart has already been jilted by Richard Rodgers. Certainly the world couldn't be that harsh as to have him dumped by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley mercilessly depicts a girl who wishes Lorenz Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can confide her experiences with guys – as well of course the Broadway power broker who can advance her profession.

Performance Highlights

Hawke demonstrates that Lorenz Hart to a degree enjoys spectator's delight in listening to these boys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Elizabeth Weiland and the picture informs us of something rarely touched on in pictures about the realm of stage musicals or the films: the awful convergence between career and love defeat. Nevertheless at some level, Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has achieved will survive. It's an outstanding portrayal from Hawke. This might become a live show – but who shall compose the tunes?

Blue Moon was shown at the London film festival; it is released on 17 October in the US, November 14 in the Britain and on January 29 in the Australian continent.