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Parting ways from the more prominent colleague in a performance partnership is a dangerous endeavor. Larry David experienced it. The same for Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this humorous and heartbreakingly sad intimate film from writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker the director Richard Linklater tells the nearly intolerable tale of songwriter for Broadway the lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with flamboyant genius, an dreadful hairpiece and simulated diminutiveness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is often digitally shrunk in size – but is also occasionally recorded positioned in an unseen pit to stare up wistfully at more statuesque figures, confronting Hart’s vertical challenge as José Ferrer in the past acted the small-statured Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Motifs

Hawke gets big, world-weary laughs with the character's witty comments on the concealed homosexuality of the film Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat musical he just watched, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he acidly calls it Okla-homo. The orientation of Lorenz Hart is complex: this film effectively triangulates his gayness with the non-queer character fabricated for him in the 1948 theater piece Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney portraying Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexuality from the lyricist's writings to his protege: youthful Yale attendee and would-be stage designer the character Elizabeth Weiland, portrayed in this film with carefree youthful femininity by actress Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the renowned New York theater songwriting team with the composer Rodgers, Hart was accountable for incomparable songs like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart’s alcoholism, inconsistency and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and joined forces with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the musical Oklahoma! and then a multitude of stage and screen smashes.

Emotional Depth

The picture envisions the deeply depressed Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s first-night Manhattan spectators in 1943, observing with envious despair as the performance continues, hating its bland sentimentality, detesting the exclamation mark at the finish of the heading, but dishearteningly conscious of how extremely potent it is. He knows a smash when he sees one – and perceives himself sinking into defeat.

Even before the interval, Lorenz Hart miserably ducks out and makes his way to the bar at the venue Sardi's where the remainder of the movie occurs, and waits for the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! troupe to appear for their after-party. He knows it is his showbiz duty to compliment Richard Rodgers, to feign all is well. With smooth moderation, actor Andrew Scott portrays Richard Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what each understands is Hart's embarrassment; he offers a sop to his pride in the form of a short-term gig writing new numbers for their current production the show A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale acts as the barman who in conventional manner listens sympathetically to Hart's monologues of acerbic misery
• Patrick Kennedy plays EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart accidentally gives the notion for his kids' story the novel Stuart Little
• Qualley acts as Elizabeth Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale student with whom the picture conceives Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in adoration

Hart has earlier been rejected by Rodgers. Surely the world wouldn't be that brutal as to get him jilted by Weiland as well? But Qualley ruthlessly portrays a girl who desires Lorenz Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can disclose her experiences with guys – as well of course the Broadway power broker who can further her career.

Performance Highlights

Hawke reveals that Hart to a degree enjoys voyeuristic pleasure in learning of these boys but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Elizabeth Weiland and the film informs us of a factor infrequently explored in pictures about the realm of stage musicals or the films: the dreadful intersection between professional and romantic failure. However at a certain point, Hart is defiantly aware that what he has achieved will endure. It's a magnificent acting job from Hawke. This could be a stage musical – but who will write the numbers?

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