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Parting ways from the better-known collaborator in a entertainment double act is a hazardous affair. Comedian Larry David did it. So did Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this humorous and profoundly melancholic chamber piece from screenwriter Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater narrates the almost agonizing account of songwriter for Broadway Lorenz Hart shortly following his breakup from Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with flamboyant genius, an dreadful hairpiece and artificial shortness by Ethan Hawke, who is often digitally shrunk in size – but is also at times shot placed in an unseen pit to look up poignantly at more statuesque figures, addressing Hart's height issue as actor José Ferrer previously portrayed the petite Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Elements

Hawke earns substantial, jaded humor with the character's witty comments on the concealed homosexuality of the film Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he’s just been to see, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he bitingly labels it Okla-gay. The orientation of Lorenz Hart is complicated: this film effectively triangulates his queer identity with the straight persona fabricated for him in the 1948 stage show the production Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney acting as Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexuality from Hart's correspondence to his young apprentice: young Yale student and would-be stage designer the character Elizabeth Weiland, acted in this movie with carefree youthful femininity by actress Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the famous musical theater composing duo with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was in charge of unparalleled tunes like The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But frustrated by the lyricist's addiction, unreliability and melancholic episodes, Rodgers severed ties with him and teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II to write the musical Oklahoma! and then a raft of live and cinematic successes.

Sentimental Layers

The movie conceives the severely despondent Lorenz Hart in Oklahoma!’s premiere NYC crowd in the year 1943, gazing with jealous anguish as the performance continues, despising its insipid emotionality, hating the exclamation point at the finish of the heading, but dishearteningly conscious of how devastatingly successful it is. He realizes a smash when he views it – and senses himself falling into failure.

Before the interval, Lorenz Hart sadly slips away and heads to the bar at the establishment Sardi's where the rest of the film occurs, and anticipates the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! company to show up for their post-show celebration. He realizes it is his entertainment obligation to congratulate Richard Rodgers, to pretend everything is all right. With suave restraint, the performer Andrew Scott acts as Richard Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what they both know is the lyricist's shame; he gives a pacifier to his self-esteem in the appearance of a short-term gig composing fresh songs for their current production the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Bobby Cannavale acts as the bartender who in conventional manner listens sympathetically to Hart’s arias of vinegary despair
• Patrick Kennedy acts as writer EB White, to whom Hart accidentally gives the idea for his kids' story the book Stuart Little
• Qualley plays the character Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Ivy League pupil with whom the film imagines Lorenz Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in adoration

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Richard Rodgers. Surely the cosmos wouldn't be that brutal as to have him dumped by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley mercilessly depicts a youthful female who desires Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can disclose her adventures with guys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can further her career.

Performance Highlights

Hawke demonstrates that Hart to a degree enjoys voyeuristic pleasure in listening to these young men but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Weiland and the picture reveals to us something infrequently explored in pictures about the realm of stage musicals or the cinema: the terrible overlap between career and love defeat. Nevertheless at some level, Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has accomplished will endure. It's an outstanding portrayal from Hawke. This might become a stage musical – but who shall compose the numbers?

The movie Blue Moon was shown at the London film festival; it is out on the 17th of October in the USA, 14 November in the Britain and on the 29th of January in the land down under.