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Separating from the more famous collaborator in a performance duo is a risky business. Larry David experienced it. Likewise Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this witty and heartbreakingly sad small-scale drama from scriptwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and director the director Richard Linklater recounts the nearly intolerable tale of musical theater lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his separation from Richard Rodgers. He is played with flamboyant genius, an dreadful hairpiece and fake smallness by Ethan Hawke, who is frequently technologically minimized in stature – but is also at times filmed standing in an unseen pit to look up poignantly at more statuesque figures, addressing Hart's height issue as José Ferrer once played the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Elements

Hawke gets large, cynical chuckles with the character's witty comments on the subtle queer themes of the classic Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he just watched, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-homo. The orientation of Lorenz Hart is complicated: this picture effectively triangulates his homosexuality with the straight persona created for him in the 1948 theater piece the production Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney portraying Lorenz Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of bisexual tendency from the lyricist's writings to his young apprentice: young Yale student and budding theater artist Elizabeth Weiland, portrayed in this film with uninhibited maidenly charm by Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the legendary New York theater lyricist-composer pair with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was responsible for matchless numbers like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But frustrated by the lyricist's addiction, unreliability and melancholic episodes, Rodgers broke with him and partnered with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to write the show Oklahoma! and then a raft of theater and film hits.

Emotional Depth

The film envisions the deeply depressed Lorenz Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s opening night New York audience in 1943, gazing with covetous misery as the production unfolds, loathing its insipid emotionality, hating the exclamation mark at the end of the title, but dishearteningly conscious of how extremely potent it is. He realizes a hit when he sees one – and feels himself descending into unsuccessfulness.

Before the intermission, Hart sadly slips away and goes to the pub at the venue Sardi's where the remainder of the movie occurs, and expects the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! company to appear for their post-show celebration. He knows it is his entertainment obligation to compliment Rodgers, to pretend all is well. With polished control, the performer Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what each understands is the lyricist's shame; he provides a consolation to his ego in the guise of a short-term gig creating additional tunes for their existing show A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale plays the barman who in standard fashion listens sympathetically to Hart’s arias of vinegary despair
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy portrays author EB White, to whom Hart unintentionally offers the notion for his kids' story Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley acts as the character Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale student with whom the movie imagines Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in affection

Hart has earlier been rejected by Rodgers. Certainly the universe wouldn't be that brutal as to get him jilted by Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a young woman who wants Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can confide her experiences with boys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can advance her profession.

Acting Excellence

Hawke shows that Hart to a degree enjoys spectator's delight in listening to these guys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Elizabeth Weiland and the film reveals to us an aspect infrequently explored in pictures about the world of musical theatre or the films: the terrible overlap between professional and romantic failure. Nevertheless at a certain point, Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has attained will endure. It’s a terrific performance from Ethan Hawke. This might become a stage musical – but who shall compose the songs?

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