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Breaking up from the more prominent colleague in a entertainment partnership is a risky business. Larry David experienced it. So did Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this witty and profoundly melancholic intimate film from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and helmer the director Richard Linklater narrates the almost agonizing tale of musical theater lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his split from composer Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with flamboyant genius, an unspeakable combover and fake smallness by Ethan Hawke, who is often technologically minimized in height – but is also sometimes shot positioned in an off-camera hole to look up poignantly at more statuesque figures, confronting the lyricist's stature problem as José Ferrer once played the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Themes

Hawke earns substantial, jaded humor with Hart’s riffs on the concealed homosexuality of the film Casablanca and the overly optimistic musical he recently attended, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he acidly calls it Okla-gay. The orientation of Hart is complex: this movie skillfully juxtaposes his homosexuality with the non-queer character invented for him in the 1948 stage show the musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney acting as Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart’s letters to his young apprentice: college student at Yale and budding theater artist the character Elizabeth Weiland, played here with heedless girlishness by actress Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the legendary Broadway composing duo with the composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was accountable for incomparable songs like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But annoyed at the lyricist's addiction, undependability and melancholic episodes, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and teamed up with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to write the show Oklahoma! and then a series of theater and film hits.

Sentimental Layers

The picture conceives the severely despondent Lorenz Hart in Oklahoma!’s premiere New York audience in 1943, looking on with jealous anguish as the production unfolds, loathing its mild sappiness, hating the punctuation mark at the finish of the heading, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how extremely potent it is. He knows a hit when he views it – and perceives himself sinking into defeat.

Before the break, Lorenz Hart miserably ducks out and heads to the tavern at the establishment Sardi's where the remainder of the movie occurs, and anticipates the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! cast to appear for their after-party. He is aware it is his entertainment obligation to compliment Rodgers, to feign everything is all right. With polished control, actor Andrew Scott portrays Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what both are aware is Hart's embarrassment; he offers a sop to his pride in the form of a short-term gig composing fresh songs for their current production the show A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Bobby Cannavale acts as the barkeeper who in conventional manner listens sympathetically to Hart’s arias of bitter despondency
• Actor Patrick Kennedy acts as author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart inadvertently provides the concept for his children’s book Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley acts as the character Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale student with whom the film envisions Lorenz Hart to be intricately and masochistically in adoration

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Rodgers. Certainly the cosmos couldn't be that harsh as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley ruthlessly portrays a youthful female who desires Lorenz Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can confide her adventures with young men – as well of course the showbiz connection who can promote her occupation.

Acting Excellence

Hawke shows that Lorenz Hart to a degree enjoys voyeuristic pleasure in listening to these young men but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Weiland and the movie reveals to us a factor seldom addressed in movies about the world of musical theatre or the movies: the awful convergence between occupational and affectionate loss. However at a certain point, Lorenz Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has accomplished will persist. It's an outstanding portrayal from Hawke. This might become a live show – but who would create the tunes?

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