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Separating from the more famous partner in a performance partnership is a hazardous endeavor. Comedian Larry David experienced it. The same for Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this witty and heartbreakingly sad intimate film from writer Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater tells the almost agonizing story of songwriter for Broadway the lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his breakup from Richard Rodgers. He is played with theatrical excellence, an unspeakable combover and simulated diminutiveness by Ethan Hawke, who is often digitally reduced in stature – but is also at times shot standing in an unseen pit to look up poignantly at heightened personas, addressing Hart's height issue as José Ferrer in the past acted the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Motifs

Hawke earns substantial, jaded humor with Hart's humorous takes on the subtle queer themes of the classic Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he’s just been to see, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he acidly calls it Okla-homo. The sexual identity of Hart is multifaceted: this picture clearly contrasts his gayness with the straight persona invented for him in the 1948 musical the production Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney portraying Lorenz Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of dual attraction from Hart's correspondence to his protégée: young Yale student and aspiring set designer the character Elizabeth Weiland, acted in this movie with carefree youthful femininity by actress Margaret Qualley.

As part of the famous Broadway lyricist-composer pair with musician Richard Rodgers, Hart was accountable for unparalleled tunes like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But exasperated with the lyricist's addiction, unreliability and melancholic episodes, Richard Rodgers broke with him and partnered with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the musical Oklahoma! and then a raft of theater and film hits.

Psychological Complexity

The picture envisions the profoundly saddened Lorenz Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s opening night Manhattan spectators in the year 1943, looking on with jealous anguish as the performance continues, loathing its insipid emotionality, detesting the exclamation mark at the conclusion of the name, but dishearteningly conscious of how devastatingly successful it is. He understands a smash when he watches it – and senses himself falling into failure.

Before the interval, Lorenz Hart miserably ducks out and makes his way to the bar at Sardi’s where the rest of the film unfolds, and waits for the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! troupe to show up for their post-show celebration. He knows it is his performance responsibility to compliment Richard Rodgers, to act as if things are fine. With smooth moderation, the performer Andrew Scott portrays Richard Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what each understands is Hart’s humiliation; he gives a pacifier to his self-esteem in the form of a short-term gig creating additional tunes for their current production A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale portrays the barman who in conventional manner attends empathetically to Hart’s arias of bitter despondency
• Actor Patrick Kennedy acts as author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart inadvertently provides the notion for his youth literature Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley acts as Elizabeth Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale attendee with whom the film conceives Lorenz Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in affection

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Richard Rodgers. Surely the universe can’t be so cruel as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley ruthlessly portrays a youthful female who wishes Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can reveal her exploits with young men – as well of course the Broadway power broker who can promote her occupation.

Performance Highlights

Hawke demonstrates that Lorenz Hart somewhat derives voyeuristic pleasure in hearing about these guys but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Weiland and the film reveals to us something infrequently explored in pictures about the realm of stage musicals or the films: the terrible overlap between career and love defeat. Nevertheless at some level, Lorenz Hart is defiantly aware that what he has achieved will survive. It's an outstanding portrayal from Ethan Hawke. This may turn into a stage musical – but who would create the songs?

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