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Separating from the more prominent collaborator in a entertainment duo is a dangerous endeavor. Larry David experienced it. Likewise Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this clever and profoundly melancholic small-scale drama from screenwriter Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater narrates the almost agonizing tale of musical theater lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. He is played with campy brilliance, an unspeakable combover and simulated diminutiveness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally shrunk in size – but is also sometimes recorded placed in an hidden depression to stare up wistfully at heightened personas, facing the lyricist's stature problem as José Ferrer in the past acted the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Elements

Hawke earns large, cynical chuckles with the character's witty comments on the concealed homosexuality of the classic Casablanca and the overly optimistic musical he just watched, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he bitingly labels it Okla-gay. The orientation of Lorenz Hart is complicated: this movie effectively triangulates his gayness with the straight persona invented for him in the 1948 stage show the musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney acting as Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of bisexual tendency from the lyricist's writings to his protege: college student at Yale and would-be stage designer Elizabeth Weiland, portrayed in this film with heedless girlishness by actress Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the legendary musical theater lyricist-composer pair with musician Richard Rodgers, Hart was accountable for matchless numbers like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But frustrated by the lyricist's addiction, unreliability and melancholic episodes, Rodgers severed ties with him and partnered with Oscar Hammerstein II to write Oklahoma! and then a raft of theater and film hits.

Emotional Depth

The picture imagines the deeply depressed Lorenz Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s premiere Manhattan spectators in 1943, gazing with jealous anguish as the show proceeds, hating its bland sentimentality, hating the punctuation mark at the end of the title, but heartsinkingly aware of how devastatingly successful it is. He knows a hit when he watches it – and feels himself descending into unsuccessfulness.

Even before the interval, Hart unhappily departs and heads to the tavern at the establishment Sardi's where the remainder of the movie takes place, and anticipates the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! cast to arrive for their following-event gathering. He knows it is his showbiz duty to praise Richard Rodgers, to feign things are fine. With polished control, the performer Andrew Scott portrays Richard Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what both are aware is the lyricist's shame; he provides a consolation to his pride in the guise of a temporary job writing new numbers for their ongoing performance the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Bobby Cannavale plays 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 Hart inadvertently provides the concept for his children’s book Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley acts as Elizabeth Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale student with whom the film imagines Lorenz Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in affection

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Richard Rodgers. Surely the universe couldn't be that harsh as to get him jilted by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley mercilessly depicts a youthful female who wants Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can disclose her exploits with guys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can advance her profession.

Standout Roles

Hawke shows that Lorenz Hart to a degree enjoys spectator's delight in listening to these guys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Weiland and the movie reveals to us something rarely touched on in films about the realm of stage musicals or the films: the awful convergence between occupational and affectionate loss. Yet at a certain point, Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has accomplished will survive. It's a magnificent acting job from Hawke. This could be a stage musical – but who will write the tunes?

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