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Separating from the better-known colleague in a showbiz partnership is a dangerous endeavor. Larry David did it. Likewise Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this clever and profoundly melancholic chamber piece from writer the writer Robert Kaplow and helmer the director Richard Linklater recounts the almost agonizing story of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. He is played with campy brilliance, an dreadful hairpiece and artificial shortness by Ethan Hawke, who is often digitally reduced in height – but is also occasionally recorded positioned in an hidden depression to gaze upward sadly at taller characters, facing the lyricist's stature problem as José Ferrer once played the small-statured Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Elements

Hawke achieves substantial, jaded humor with Hart's humorous takes on the concealed homosexuality of the film Casablanca and the excessively cheerful theater production he recently attended, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he bitingly labels it Okla-homo. The sexuality of Lorenz Hart is multifaceted: this movie clearly contrasts his queer identity with the heterosexual image fabricated for him in the 1948 musical the musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney portraying Lorenz Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of dual attraction from the lyricist's writings to his protégée: college student at Yale and budding theater artist Weiland, acted in this movie with carefree youthful femininity by actress Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the famous musical theater songwriting team with the composer Rodgers, Hart was responsible for unparalleled tunes like The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart’s alcoholism, undependability and melancholic episodes, Rodgers broke with him and joined forces with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to write the show Oklahoma! and then a series of theater and film hits.

Sentimental Layers

The movie imagines the profoundly saddened Lorenz Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s first-night New York audience in 1943, observing with jealous anguish as the performance continues, loathing its bland sentimentality, detesting the exclamation point at the finish of the heading, but dishearteningly conscious of how lethally effective it is. He realizes a success when he views it – and feels himself descending into defeat.

Before the break, Hart unhappily departs and goes to the tavern at the establishment Sardi's where the balance of the picture takes place, and anticipates the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! troupe to show up for their after-party. He knows it is his showbiz duty to praise Richard Rodgers, to pretend things are fine. With polished control, the performer Andrew Scott plays Richard Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what both are aware is the lyricist's shame; he gives a pacifier to his pride in the guise of a brief assignment writing new numbers for their existing show the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale portrays the barman who in conventional manner hears compassionately to the character's soliloquies of vinegary despair
• Patrick Kennedy plays writer EB White, to whom Hart inadvertently provides the concept for his youth literature the book Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley portrays Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale attendee with whom the film conceives Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in love

Lorenz Hart has already been jilted by Rodgers. Undoubtedly the universe can’t be so cruel as to get him jilted by Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley pitilessly acts a youthful female who wants Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can reveal her experiences with young men – as well of course the showbiz connection who can promote her occupation.

Standout Roles

Hawke reveals that Lorenz Hart to a degree enjoys voyeuristic pleasure in learning of these young men but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Weiland and the film tells us about a factor infrequently explored in pictures about the world of musical theatre or the movies: the terrible overlap between professional and romantic failure. Nevertheless at some level, Lorenz Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has achieved will survive. It's a magnificent acting job from Ethan Hawke. This might become a live show – but who would create the tunes?

The movie Blue Moon was shown at the London movie festival; it is available on October 17 in the US, November 14 in the UK and on 29 January in Australia.