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Breaking up from the more famous partner in a entertainment double act is a risky endeavor. Larry David did it. The same for Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this witty and heartbreakingly sad intimate film from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and filmmaker Richard Linklater recounts the all but unbearable tale of musical theater lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his separation from Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with theatrical excellence, an notable toupee and simulated diminutiveness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is frequently technologically minimized in height – but is also sometimes filmed placed in an hidden depression to gaze upward sadly at more statuesque figures, addressing the lyricist's stature problem as José Ferrer previously portrayed the small-statured Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Motifs

Hawke achieves big, world-weary laughs with Hart's humorous takes on the subtle queer themes of the movie Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he just watched, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he bitingly labels it Okla-homo. The orientation of Lorenz Hart is complex: this film clearly contrasts his queer identity with the heterosexual image invented for him in the 1948 theater piece the musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney portraying Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart’s letters to his protégée: college student at Yale and would-be stage designer Elizabeth Weiland, played here with carefree youthful femininity by actress Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the renowned New York theater composing duo with composer Rodgers, Hart was responsible for matchless numbers like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But annoyed at the lyricist's addiction, inconsistency and melancholic episodes, Richard Rodgers broke with him and teamed up with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to write Oklahoma! and then a multitude of stage and screen smashes.

Sentimental Layers

The film imagines the profoundly saddened Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s first-night New York audience in the year 1943, looking on with envious despair as the show proceeds, loathing its insipid emotionality, abhorring the exclamation point at the conclusion of the name, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how extremely potent it is. He realizes a hit when he sees one – and senses himself falling into defeat.

Prior to the break, Lorenz Hart unhappily departs and goes to the tavern at Sardi’s where the balance of the picture unfolds, and waits for the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! company to show up for their following-event gathering. He realizes it is his performance responsibility to compliment Richard Rodgers, to pretend everything is all right. With polished control, the performer Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what both are aware is Hart's embarrassment; he provides a consolation to his self-esteem in the guise of a short-term gig writing new numbers for their ongoing performance the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale plays the barkeeper who in traditional style attends empathetically to the character's soliloquies of bitter despondency
• Patrick Kennedy plays author EB White, to whom Hart unintentionally offers the concept for his youth literature the novel Stuart Little
• Qualley acts as Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Ivy League pupil with whom the movie imagines Lorenz Hart to be intricately and masochistically in love

Lorenz Hart has already been jilted by Richard Rodgers. Surely the world couldn't be that harsh as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley pitilessly acts a youthful female who wants Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can disclose her exploits with guys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can promote her occupation.

Performance Highlights

Hawke demonstrates that Hart to a degree enjoys observational satisfaction in hearing about these young men but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Weiland and the picture informs us of a factor seldom addressed in pictures about the realm of stage musicals or the films: the terrible overlap between professional and romantic failure. Yet at a certain point, Lorenz Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has attained will persist. It's a magnificent acting job from Hawke. This might become a stage musical – but who will write the songs?

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