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Breaking up from the better-known partner in a performance double act is a risky affair. Comedian Larry David did it. The same for Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this humorous and profoundly melancholic chamber piece from screenwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker Richard Linklater narrates the all but unbearable story of Broadway lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his split from composer Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with theatrical excellence, an unspeakable combover and simulated diminutiveness by Ethan Hawke, who is frequently digitally shrunk in stature – but is also sometimes filmed standing in an hidden depression to look up poignantly at more statuesque figures, addressing Hart’s vertical challenge as actor José Ferrer previously portrayed the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Themes

Hawke gets big, world-weary laughs with Hart’s riffs on the subtle queer themes of the classic Casablanca and the excessively cheerful musical he just watched, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-queer. The sexual identity of Lorenz Hart is multifaceted: this film skillfully juxtaposes his queer identity with the non-queer character invented for him in the 1948 musical the musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney portraying Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexual tendency from the lyricist's writings to his protégée: youthful Yale attendee and budding theater artist the character Elizabeth Weiland, played here with heedless girlishness by actress Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the famous Broadway songwriting team with musician Richard Rodgers, Hart was responsible for matchless numbers like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But frustrated by Hart's drinking problem, unreliability and depressive outbursts, Rodgers broke with him and joined forces with Oscar Hammerstein II to compose Oklahoma! and then a raft of live and cinematic successes.

Emotional Depth

The film conceives the profoundly saddened Lorenz Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s first-night New York audience in 1943, gazing with envious despair as the show proceeds, hating its mild sappiness, abhorring the punctuation mark at the end of the title, but heartsinkingly aware of how lethally effective it is. He understands a smash when he watches it – and perceives himself sinking into failure.

Prior to the interval, Lorenz Hart unhappily departs and goes to the tavern at Sardi’s where the rest of the film occurs, and waits for the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! company to arrive for their post-show celebration. He is aware it is his performance responsibility to congratulate Rodgers, to pretend everything is all right. With polished control, Andrew Scott plays Richard Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what each understands is Hart’s humiliation; he provides a consolation 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.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale acts as the bartender who in conventional manner attends empathetically to Hart’s arias of bitter despondency
• Actor Patrick Kennedy plays author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart accidentally gives the concept for his youth literature the book Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley acts as the character Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale student with whom the film envisions Hart to be intricately and masochistically in affection

Lorenz Hart has previously been abandoned by Richard Rodgers. Certainly the cosmos wouldn't be that brutal as to get him jilted by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley ruthlessly portrays a young woman who wishes Lorenz Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can confide her experiences with guys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can further her career.

Acting Excellence

Hawke reveals that Hart somewhat derives voyeuristic pleasure in learning of these young men but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Elizabeth Weiland and the picture tells us about a factor seldom addressed in pictures about the world of musical theatre or the films: the terrible overlap between career and love defeat. Yet at a certain point, Hart is defiantly aware that what he has achieved will persist. It's an outstanding portrayal from Hawke. This may turn into a stage musical – but who would create the tunes?

Blue Moon premiered at the London movie festival; it is available on the 17th of October in the United States, the 14th of November in the Britain and on January 29 in the land down under.