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Breaking up from the more famous colleague in a performance partnership is a dangerous business. Larry David went through it. The same for Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this clever and deeply sorrowful chamber piece from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and director Richard Linklater tells the all but unbearable story of musical theater lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with theatrical excellence, an notable toupee and artificial shortness by Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally reduced in height – but is also occasionally recorded placed in an off-camera hole to look up poignantly at heightened personas, facing Hart's height issue as actor José Ferrer once played the petite artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Elements

Hawke earns large, cynical chuckles with the character's witty comments on the hidden gayness of the film Casablanca and the excessively cheerful stage show he’s just been to see, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he acidly calls it Okla-queer. The orientation of Hart is complicated: this movie skillfully juxtaposes his queer identity with the straight persona created for him in the 1948 stage show Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney playing Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexuality from the lyricist's writings to his protégée: youthful Yale attendee and would-be stage designer Elizabeth Weiland, acted in this movie with uninhibited maidenly charm by actress Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the legendary Broadway songwriting team with musician Richard Rodgers, Hart was in charge of unparalleled tunes like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But exasperated with Hart's drinking problem, undependability and depressive outbursts, Rodgers broke with him and partnered with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the show Oklahoma! and then a raft of stage and screen smashes.

Emotional Depth

The picture envisions the severely despondent Hart in Oklahoma!’s opening night NYC crowd in 1943, gazing with envious despair as the production unfolds, loathing its bland sentimentality, hating the exclamation point at the end of the title, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how lethally effective it is. He realizes a success when he views it – and feels himself descending into unsuccessfulness.

Before the break, Hart miserably ducks out and goes to the pub at Sardi’s where the balance of the picture occurs, and expects the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! troupe to arrive for their after-party. He is aware it is his entertainment obligation to compliment Rodgers, to act as if everything is all right. With smooth moderation, the performer Andrew Scott portrays Richard Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what each understands is the lyricist's shame; he provides a consolation to his pride in the appearance of a brief assignment creating additional tunes for their existing show the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale portrays the barkeeper who in conventional manner hears compassionately to Hart's monologues of bitter despondency
• Actor Patrick Kennedy acts as EB White, to whom Hart unintentionally offers the idea for his kids' story the book Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley acts as the character Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale attendee with whom the movie envisions Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in love

Hart has previously been abandoned by Richard Rodgers. Certainly the world wouldn't be that brutal as to get him jilted by Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley ruthlessly portrays a young woman who desires Lorenz Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can reveal her experiences with boys – as well of course the Broadway power broker who can promote her occupation.

Standout Roles

Hawke demonstrates that Hart somewhat derives voyeuristic pleasure in hearing about these boys but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Weiland and the film tells us about a factor infrequently explored in movies about the world of musical theatre or the movies: the terrible overlap between career and love defeat. Nevertheless at some level, Hart is defiantly aware that what he has accomplished will endure. It's a magnificent acting job from Ethan Hawke. This could be a stage musical – but who will write the numbers?

The film Blue Moon premiered at the London film festival; it is out on 17 October in the USA, the 14th of November in the Britain and on the 29th of January in the Australian continent.