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Separating from the more prominent collaborator in a entertainment duo is a hazardous business. Larry David did it. So did Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this clever and heartbreakingly sad small-scale drama from screenwriter Robert Kaplow and filmmaker Richard Linklater tells the all but unbearable account of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his separation from Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with theatrical excellence, an unspeakable combover and fake smallness by Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally reduced in size – but is also occasionally filmed standing in an off-camera hole to look up poignantly at taller characters, confronting the lyricist's stature problem as actor José Ferrer previously portrayed the petite artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Motifs

Hawke gets big, world-weary laughs with the character's witty comments on the hidden gayness of the movie Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he just watched, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he bitingly labels it Okla-gay. The orientation of Hart is complicated: this film skillfully juxtaposes his queer identity with the heterosexual image fabricated for him in the 1948 stage show the production Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney playing Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of dual attraction from Hart’s letters to his protege: youthful Yale attendee and budding theater artist Weiland, played here with uninhibited maidenly charm by Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the famous New York theater songwriting team with composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was in charge of matchless numbers 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 drinking problem, undependability and depressive outbursts, Richard Rodgers ended their partnership and joined forces with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the musical Oklahoma! and then a series of stage and screen smashes.

Emotional Depth

The film envisions the profoundly saddened Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s premiere New York audience in 1943, observing with covetous misery as the performance continues, despising its insipid emotionality, abhorring the exclamation point at the finish of the heading, but dishearteningly conscious of how lethally effective it is. He understands a hit when he watches it – and senses himself falling into unsuccessfulness.

Even before the intermission, Lorenz Hart miserably ducks out and makes his way to the tavern at the establishment Sardi's where the rest of the film takes place, and waits for the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! troupe to arrive for their after-party. He realizes it is his showbiz duty to congratulate Richard Rodgers, to pretend everything is all right. With polished control, actor Andrew Scott acts as Richard Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what they both know is Hart's embarrassment; he offers a sop to his self-esteem in the guise of a temporary job composing fresh songs for their current production the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale plays the bartender who in conventional manner hears compassionately to the character's soliloquies of vinegary despair
• Actor Patrick Kennedy plays EB White, to whom Hart unintentionally offers the concept for his youth literature the book Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley portrays Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale student with whom the movie conceives Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in affection

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Rodgers. Certainly the world can’t be so cruel as to get him jilted by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a girl who wishes Lorenz Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can disclose her adventures with boys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can promote her occupation.

Acting Excellence

Hawke shows that Hart somewhat derives observational satisfaction in hearing about these guys but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Elizabeth Weiland and the movie reveals to us something infrequently explored in movies about the domain of theater music or the movies: the dreadful intersection between occupational and affectionate loss. Yet at some level, Lorenz Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has attained will survive. It's an outstanding portrayal from Ethan Hawke. This might become a live show – but who shall compose the numbers?

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