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Parting ways from the more prominent collaborator in a entertainment double act is a risky affair. Comedian Larry David went through it. So did Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this clever and profoundly melancholic small-scale drama from writer the writer Robert Kaplow and director the director Richard Linklater recounts the almost agonizing account of Broadway lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with flamboyant genius, an unspeakable combover and simulated diminutiveness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is frequently digitally reduced in height – but is also at times filmed placed in an unseen pit to look up poignantly at heightened personas, facing Hart's height issue as actor José Ferrer previously portrayed the diminutive artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Motifs

Hawke achieves big, world-weary laughs with Hart's humorous takes on the subtle queer themes of the classic Casablanca and the excessively cheerful theater production he just watched, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he acidly calls it Okla-homo. The sexuality of Hart is complicated: this picture skillfully juxtaposes his homosexuality with the non-queer character fabricated for him in the 1948 stage show Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney acting as Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexual tendency from the lyricist's writings to his young apprentice: college student at Yale and budding theater artist the character Elizabeth Weiland, played here with carefree youthful femininity by the performer Margaret Qualley.

As part of the legendary Broadway lyricist-composer pair with the composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was in charge of incomparable songs like The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But exasperated with Hart’s alcoholism, undependability and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers broke with him and teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II to write Oklahoma! and then a raft of theater and film hits.

Psychological Complexity

The film conceives the deeply depressed Lorenz Hart in Oklahoma!’s opening night Manhattan spectators in 1943, looking on with jealous anguish as the production unfolds, despising its insipid emotionality, abhorring the exclamation mark at the conclusion of the name, but dishearteningly conscious of how devastatingly successful it is. He knows a smash when he views it – and feels himself descending into failure.

Before the interval, Hart unhappily departs and heads to the tavern at Sardi’s where the balance of the picture occurs, and waits for the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! cast to arrive for their after-party. He realizes it is his performance responsibility to praise Rodgers, to pretend things are fine. With smooth moderation, Andrew Scott plays Richard Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what each understands is Hart's embarrassment; he offers a sop to his ego in the guise of a short-term gig creating additional tunes for their ongoing performance the show A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale portrays the bartender who in traditional style attends empathetically to Hart’s arias of vinegary despair
• Actor Patrick Kennedy plays author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart unintentionally offers the idea for his youth literature Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley acts as the character Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale attendee with whom the film conceives Hart to be intricately and masochistically in affection

Hart has already been jilted by Rodgers. Undoubtedly the cosmos can’t be so cruel as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a young woman who wishes Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can reveal her adventures with guys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can advance her profession.

Acting Excellence

Hawke demonstrates that Hart partly takes observational satisfaction in hearing about these young men but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Weiland and the film informs us of a factor rarely touched on in films about the domain of theater music or the films: the terrible overlap between professional and romantic failure. However at a certain point, Lorenz Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has accomplished will persist. It's a magnificent acting job from Hawke. This might become a live show – but who will write the numbers?

Blue Moon was shown at the London movie festival; it is out on October 17 in the US, 14 November in the Britain and on the 29th of January in the land down under.