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Breaking up from the more famous colleague in a entertainment double act is a dangerous affair. Comedian Larry David did it. The same for Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this witty and deeply sorrowful intimate film from screenwriter Robert Kaplow and helmer the director Richard Linklater narrates the nearly intolerable tale of songwriter for Broadway the lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his split from Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with theatrical excellence, an notable toupee and simulated diminutiveness by Ethan Hawke, who is regularly technologically minimized in size – but is also at times shot standing in an hidden depression to gaze upward sadly at more statuesque figures, facing Hart’s vertical challenge as actor José Ferrer previously portrayed the small-statured Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Elements

Hawke gets large, cynical chuckles with the character's witty comments on the subtle queer themes of the classic Casablanca and the overly optimistic stage show he just watched, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he bitingly labels it Okla-gay. The orientation of Hart is complicated: this movie skillfully juxtaposes his homosexuality with the heterosexual image invented for him in the 1948 theater piece Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney portraying Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of dual attraction from Hart's correspondence to his young apprentice: college student at Yale and aspiring set designer Elizabeth Weiland, portrayed in this film with uninhibited maidenly charm by actress Margaret Qualley.

As part of the legendary musical theater lyricist-composer pair with the composer Rodgers, Hart was accountable for unparalleled tunes like The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But exasperated with the lyricist's addiction, undependability and melancholic episodes, Rodgers severed ties with him and joined forces with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the musical Oklahoma! and then a multitude of theater and film hits.

Psychological Complexity

The movie conceives the severely despondent Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s first-night NYC crowd in 1943, gazing with covetous misery as the show proceeds, despising its insipid emotionality, detesting the punctuation mark at the finish of the heading, but heartsinkingly aware of how devastatingly successful it is. He realizes a success when he watches it – and feels himself descending into defeat.

Before the break, Lorenz Hart sadly slips away and heads to the bar at Sardi’s where the balance of the picture takes place, and expects the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! cast to show up for their post-show celebration. He knows it is his showbiz duty to praise Rodgers, to act as if everything is all right. With suave restraint, Andrew Scott plays Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what each understands is Hart’s humiliation; he provides a consolation to his pride in the guise of a short-term gig writing new numbers for their existing show A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• Bobby Cannavale portrays the barkeeper who in conventional manner listens sympathetically to Hart's monologues of vinegary despair
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy acts as EB White, to whom Hart inadvertently provides the concept for his youth literature the novel Stuart Little
• Qualley portrays Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale attendee with whom the movie conceives Hart to be intricately and masochistically in love

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Richard Rodgers. Surely the world can’t be so cruel as to have him dumped by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley pitilessly acts a youthful female who wishes Lorenz Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can confide her experiences with guys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can advance her profession.

Acting Excellence

Hawke shows that Hart partly takes voyeuristic pleasure in hearing about these boys but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Elizabeth Weiland and the film informs us of something infrequently explored in films about the domain of theater music or the cinema: the terrible overlap between occupational and affectionate loss. However at some level, Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has achieved will endure. It's an outstanding portrayal from Hawke. This might become a theater production – but who would create the numbers?

Blue Moon was shown at the London movie festival; it is released on 17 October in the United States, 14 November in the UK and on 29 January in the land down under.