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Separating from the better-known partner in a performance double act is a risky business. Larry David did it. So did Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this humorous and profoundly melancholic chamber piece from writer the writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker the director Richard Linklater tells the all but unbearable story of songwriter for Broadway the lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with theatrical excellence, an notable toupee and artificial shortness by Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally shrunk in stature – but is also at times filmed placed in an hidden depression to gaze upward sadly at more statuesque figures, facing the lyricist's stature problem as José Ferrer once played the petite Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Motifs

Hawke gets big, world-weary laughs with the character's witty comments on the subtle queer themes of the film Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat musical he just watched, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-homo. The orientation of Hart is multifaceted: this movie effectively triangulates his gayness with the heterosexual image fabricated for him in the 1948 stage show the production Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney acting as Lorenz Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart’s letters to his protégée: youthful Yale attendee and budding theater artist the character Elizabeth Weiland, acted in this movie with uninhibited maidenly charm by Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the famous Broadway lyricist-composer pair with composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was in charge of unparalleled tunes like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But frustrated by the lyricist's addiction, inconsistency and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and teamed up with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to write Oklahoma! and then a multitude of stage and screen smashes.

Psychological Complexity

The movie envisions the severely despondent Hart in Oklahoma!’s first-night New York audience in 1943, looking on with covetous misery as the production unfolds, hating its bland sentimentality, abhorring the exclamation mark at the finish of the heading, but dishearteningly conscious of how lethally effective it is. He understands a success when he views it – and senses himself falling into failure.

Before the break, Lorenz Hart miserably ducks out and heads to the bar at the establishment Sardi's where the balance of the picture takes place, and anticipates the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! troupe to show up for their after-party. He is aware it is his showbiz duty to compliment Richard Rodgers, to act as if all is well. With polished control, Andrew Scott plays Richard Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what they both know is Hart's embarrassment; he gives a pacifier to his self-esteem in the appearance of a brief assignment composing fresh songs for their existing show the show A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• Bobby Cannavale portrays the barkeeper who in traditional style attends empathetically to Hart’s arias of acerbic misery
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy portrays writer EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart accidentally gives the idea for his kids' story the novel Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley portrays the character Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale attendee with whom the movie envisions Lorenz Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in adoration

Lorenz Hart has previously been abandoned by Rodgers. Undoubtedly the cosmos can’t be so cruel as to cause him to be spurned by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley ruthlessly portrays a girl who wishes Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can confide her adventures with young men – as well of course the showbiz connection who can further her career.

Standout Roles

Hawke shows that Hart to a degree enjoys observational satisfaction in hearing about these guys but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Weiland and the movie reveals to us something seldom addressed in movies about the domain of theater music or the films: the terrible overlap between professional and romantic failure. Yet at one stage, Lorenz Hart is defiantly aware that what he has accomplished will survive. It’s a terrific performance from Hawke. This could be a live show – but who shall compose the numbers?

Blue Moon was shown at the London cinema festival; it is available on the 17th of October in the US, the 14th of November in the United Kingdom and on January 29 in the Australian continent.