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Separating from the better-known collaborator in a performance double act is a risky business. Comedian Larry David experienced it. Likewise Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this clever and heartbreakingly sad chamber piece from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater narrates the nearly intolerable story of Broadway lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his split from Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with flamboyant genius, an unspeakable combover and artificial shortness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is frequently digitally reduced in stature – but is also sometimes recorded standing in an unseen pit to gaze upward sadly at more statuesque figures, confronting the lyricist's stature problem as actor José Ferrer in the past acted the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Motifs

Hawke earns large, cynical chuckles with Hart’s riffs on the concealed homosexuality of the movie Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat musical he recently attended, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he bitingly labels it Okla-gay. The sexual identity of Hart is complicated: this movie skillfully juxtaposes his queer identity with the straight persona created for him in the 1948 theater piece Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney acting as Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexuality from Hart’s letters to his protege: college student at Yale and would-be stage designer Elizabeth Weiland, acted in this movie with carefree youthful femininity by the performer Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the famous Broadway composing duo with musician Richard Rodgers, Hart was in charge of matchless numbers 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, undependability and depressive outbursts, Richard Rodgers ended their partnership and teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II to write the musical Oklahoma! and then a raft of live and cinematic successes.

Psychological Complexity

The film conceives the severely despondent Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s opening night Manhattan spectators in 1943, gazing with envious despair as the performance continues, despising its insipid emotionality, hating the punctuation mark at the end of the title, but heartsinkingly aware of how devastatingly successful it is. He knows a hit when he sees one – and feels himself descending into failure.

Even before the intermission, Lorenz Hart miserably ducks out and makes his way to the bar at the establishment Sardi's where the remainder of the movie unfolds, and anticipates the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! company to arrive for their after-party. He knows it is his performance responsibility to congratulate Richard Rodgers, to feign things are fine. With polished control, actor Andrew Scott portrays Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what each understands is Hart's embarrassment; he offers a sop to his ego in the form of a brief assignment creating additional tunes for their existing show A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Bobby Cannavale acts as the barkeeper who in standard fashion attends empathetically to Hart’s arias of bitter despondency
• Patrick Kennedy plays writer EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart inadvertently provides the notion for his kids' story Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley acts as the character Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Ivy League pupil with whom the movie imagines Lorenz Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in adoration

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Richard Rodgers. Undoubtedly the world couldn't be that harsh as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley pitilessly acts a young woman who desires Lorenz Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can reveal her exploits with boys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can promote her occupation.

Acting Excellence

Hawke shows that Hart to a degree enjoys spectator's delight in listening to these young men but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Elizabeth Weiland and the picture informs us of a factor rarely touched on in films about the realm of stage musicals or the movies: the terrible overlap between professional and romantic failure. Yet at a certain point, Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has achieved will survive. It’s a terrific performance from Hawke. This might become a theater production – but who shall compose the numbers?

The film Blue Moon premiered at the London movie festival; it is available on 17 October in the United States, November 14 in the UK and on the 29th of January in the Australian continent.