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Breaking up from the more famous collaborator in a entertainment partnership is a risky business. Comedian Larry David went through it. The same for Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this clever and deeply sorrowful intimate film from screenwriter Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater recounts the almost agonizing account of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with campy brilliance, an notable toupee and fake smallness by Ethan Hawke, who is frequently digitally shrunk in height – but is also sometimes recorded placed in an hidden depression to gaze upward sadly at taller characters, addressing Hart’s vertical challenge as José Ferrer previously portrayed the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Motifs

Hawke achieves large, cynical chuckles with the character's witty comments on the concealed homosexuality of the film Casablanca and the overly optimistic musical he recently attended, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-homo. The sexuality of Hart is complex: this picture skillfully juxtaposes his gayness with the straight persona created for him in the 1948 stage show the production Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney playing Lorenz Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of bisexuality from the lyricist's writings to his protege: youthful Yale attendee and aspiring set designer Elizabeth Weiland, played here with carefree youthful femininity by actress Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the legendary musical theater composing duo with musician Richard Rodgers, Hart was accountable for unparalleled tunes like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart’s alcoholism, inconsistency and depressive outbursts, Richard Rodgers ended their partnership and joined forces with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to write Oklahoma! and then a multitude of live and cinematic successes.

Sentimental Layers

The picture envisions the severely despondent Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s premiere NYC crowd in 1943, observing with envious despair as the show proceeds, hating its insipid emotionality, hating the exclamation mark at the conclusion of the name, but dishearteningly conscious of how lethally effective it is. He knows a hit when he watches it – and feels himself descending into defeat.

Prior to the break, Lorenz Hart sadly slips away and heads to the tavern at Sardi’s where the remainder of the movie takes place, and expects the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! cast to appear for their post-show celebration. He realizes it is his performance responsibility to congratulate Rodgers, to act as if all is well. With smooth moderation, actor Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what both are aware is the lyricist's shame; he offers a sop to his ego in the form of a temporary job creating additional tunes for their current production the show A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• Bobby Cannavale plays the barkeeper who in standard fashion listens sympathetically to the character's soliloquies of acerbic misery
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy portrays EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart inadvertently provides the concept for his youth literature the book Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley portrays Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Ivy League pupil with whom the film imagines Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in love

Hart has already been jilted by Rodgers. Surely the world couldn't be that harsh as to cause him to be spurned by Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley pitilessly acts a girl who wants Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can disclose her experiences with boys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can further her career.

Standout Roles

Hawke demonstrates that Hart to a degree enjoys observational satisfaction in learning of these young men but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Elizabeth Weiland and the film tells us about a factor infrequently explored in pictures about the realm of stage musicals or the cinema: the awful convergence between professional and romantic failure. However at a certain point, Lorenz Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has achieved will survive. It’s a terrific performance from Hawke. This may turn into a theater production – but who will write the songs?

Blue Moon premiered at the London cinema festival; it is released on the 17th of October in the USA, November 14 in the United Kingdom and on the 29th of January in the Australian continent.