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Separating from the better-known partner in a performance duo is a dangerous business. Comedian Larry David went through it. Likewise Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this witty and deeply sorrowful intimate film from screenwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and helmer the director Richard Linklater tells the almost agonizing tale of Broadway lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his breakup from Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with theatrical excellence, an notable toupee and simulated diminutiveness by Ethan Hawke, who is frequently technologically minimized in height – but is also sometimes shot placed in an off-camera hole to look up poignantly at more statuesque figures, confronting Hart’s vertical challenge as actor José Ferrer once played the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Themes

Hawke achieves big, world-weary laughs with Hart's humorous takes on the subtle queer themes of the classic Casablanca and the excessively cheerful theater production he just watched, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-queer. The sexuality of Hart is multifaceted: this movie effectively triangulates his gayness with the heterosexual image fabricated for him in the 1948 theater piece the production Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney portraying Lorenz Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of bisexual tendency from the lyricist's writings to his protege: youthful Yale attendee and budding theater artist Elizabeth Weiland, acted in this movie with carefree youthful femininity by actress Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the renowned Broadway composing duo with the composer 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 Blue Moon. But exasperated with Hart's drinking problem, unreliability and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers ended their partnership and partnered with Oscar Hammerstein II to create the musical Oklahoma! and then a multitude of live and cinematic successes.

Sentimental Layers

The film envisions the severely despondent Hart in Oklahoma!’s opening night New York audience in 1943, looking on with covetous misery as the production unfolds, loathing its insipid emotionality, hating the exclamation point at the finish of the heading, but dishearteningly conscious of how devastatingly successful it is. He knows a smash when he watches it – and feels himself descending into failure.

Prior to the interval, Hart unhappily departs and goes to the bar at Sardi’s where the balance of the picture takes place, and expects the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! cast to appear for their following-event gathering. He is aware it is his entertainment obligation to congratulate Richard Rodgers, to act as if things are fine. With suave restraint, Andrew Scott plays Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what they both know is Hart’s humiliation; he provides a consolation to his self-esteem in the form of a short-term gig writing new numbers for their current production the show A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale portrays the barman who in standard fashion listens sympathetically to Hart’s arias of vinegary despair
• Actor Patrick Kennedy acts as writer EB White, to whom Hart inadvertently provides the concept for his kids' story Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley acts as the character Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Ivy League pupil with whom the movie conceives Lorenz Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in love

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Richard Rodgers. Certainly the universe can’t be so cruel as to get him jilted by Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley pitilessly acts a girl who desires Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can confide her exploits with guys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can further her career.

Acting Excellence

Hawke shows that Lorenz Hart to a degree enjoys voyeuristic pleasure in listening to these boys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Weiland and the movie reveals to us something rarely touched on in films about the realm of stage musicals or the films: the dreadful intersection between career and love defeat. Yet at one stage, Lorenz Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has accomplished will survive. It’s a terrific performance from Ethan Hawke. This may turn into a theater production – but who will write the songs?

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