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Separating from the more prominent collaborator in a showbiz partnership is a hazardous business. Larry David did it. The same for Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this clever and deeply sorrowful chamber piece from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and filmmaker the director Richard Linklater recounts the almost agonizing tale of musical theater lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with campy brilliance, an notable toupee and artificial shortness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is frequently technologically minimized in stature – but is also at times recorded standing in an off-camera hole to look up poignantly at taller characters, confronting the lyricist's stature problem as actor José Ferrer in the past acted the petite artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Motifs

Hawke achieves large, cynical chuckles with Hart’s riffs on the concealed homosexuality of the classic Casablanca and the overly optimistic stage show he just watched, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he acidly calls it Okla-gay. The sexuality of Lorenz Hart is complicated: this movie skillfully juxtaposes his gayness with the heterosexual image created for him in the 1948 musical the production Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney acting as Lorenz Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of bisexuality from Hart's correspondence to his protege: young Yale student and aspiring set designer Elizabeth Weiland, acted in this movie with heedless girlishness by Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the legendary New York theater lyricist-composer pair with musician Richard Rodgers, Hart was accountable for matchless numbers like The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart’s alcoholism, undependability and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers broke with him and joined forces with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to write the musical Oklahoma! and then a raft of stage and screen smashes.

Emotional Depth

The movie imagines the severely despondent Lorenz Hart in Oklahoma!’s first-night New York audience in the year 1943, looking on with jealous anguish as the show proceeds, hating its mild sappiness, abhorring the exclamation mark at the finish of the heading, but dishearteningly conscious of how lethally effective it is. He knows a hit when he views it – and senses himself falling into defeat.

Even before the intermission, Hart unhappily departs and makes his way to the tavern at the establishment Sardi's where the remainder of the movie takes place, and anticipates the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! troupe to appear for their post-show celebration. He knows it is his showbiz duty to praise Rodgers, to pretend everything is all right. With polished control, Andrew Scott plays Richard 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 temporary job writing new numbers for their current production the show A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale acts as the barkeeper who in conventional manner listens sympathetically to the character's soliloquies of bitter despondency
• Actor Patrick Kennedy plays writer EB White, to whom Hart inadvertently provides the concept for his children’s book the novel Stuart Little
• Qualley portrays Elizabeth Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Ivy League pupil with whom the picture conceives Hart to be intricately and masochistically in adoration

Lorenz Hart has previously been abandoned by Rodgers. Surely the cosmos can’t be so cruel as to have him dumped by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a young woman who wants Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can disclose her exploits with guys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can further her career.

Standout Roles

Hawke reveals that Lorenz Hart to a degree enjoys observational satisfaction in listening to these young men but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Elizabeth Weiland and the film reveals to us an aspect infrequently explored in films about the realm of stage musicals or the movies: the awful convergence between career and love defeat. Nevertheless at one stage, Lorenz Hart is defiantly aware that what he has attained will persist. It’s a terrific performance from Hawke. This may turn into a live show – but who would create the tunes?

The film Blue Moon premiered at the London cinema festival; it is released on October 17 in the United States, 14 November in the UK and on 29 January in the land down under.