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Parting ways from the more famous partner in a entertainment partnership is a hazardous affair. Larry David experienced it. The same for Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this witty and deeply sorrowful small-scale drama from screenwriter Robert Kaplow and director Richard Linklater narrates the all but unbearable account of musical theater lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. He is played with flamboyant genius, an notable toupee and simulated diminutiveness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is often digitally reduced in stature – but is also occasionally recorded placed in an unseen pit to look up poignantly at more statuesque figures, facing the lyricist's stature problem as José Ferrer once played the petite artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Elements

Hawke achieves big, world-weary laughs with the character's witty comments on the hidden gayness of the film Casablanca and the overly optimistic theater production he just watched, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he acidly calls it Okla-homo. The sexuality of Hart is complex: this film clearly contrasts his homosexuality with the heterosexual image fabricated for him in the 1948 theater piece Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney playing Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart’s letters to his protege: youthful Yale attendee and would-be stage designer Elizabeth Weiland, acted in this movie with carefree youthful femininity by Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the legendary Broadway composing duo with the composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was in charge of incomparable songs like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart’s alcoholism, unreliability and melancholic episodes, Rodgers severed ties with him and partnered with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the musical Oklahoma! and then a multitude of stage and screen smashes.

Psychological Complexity

The movie conceives the severely despondent Lorenz Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s premiere Manhattan spectators in 1943, observing with envious despair as the production unfolds, hating its bland sentimentality, hating the exclamation point at the conclusion of the name, but heartsinkingly aware of how devastatingly successful it is. He knows a smash when he sees one – and perceives himself sinking into unsuccessfulness.

Before the break, Hart sadly slips away and makes his way to the bar at the venue Sardi's where the remainder of the movie takes place, and waits for the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! company to arrive for their after-party. He is aware it is his performance responsibility to compliment Rodgers, to pretend everything is all right. With suave restraint, the performer Andrew Scott portrays Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what both are aware is Hart’s humiliation; he offers a sop to his ego in the appearance of a short-term gig writing new numbers for their ongoing performance the show A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale portrays the barkeeper who in conventional manner listens sympathetically to Hart's monologues of acerbic misery
• Actor Patrick Kennedy acts as author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart inadvertently provides the notion for his youth literature the novel Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley portrays the character Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Ivy League pupil with whom the movie conceives Lorenz Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in affection

Lorenz Hart has previously been abandoned by Richard Rodgers. Certainly the cosmos couldn't be that harsh as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a youthful female who wishes Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can disclose her experiences with young men – as well of course the showbiz connection who can further her career.

Acting Excellence

Hawke reveals that Hart to a degree enjoys spectator's delight in listening to these young men but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Weiland and the film informs us of an aspect seldom addressed in films about the world of musical theatre or the movies: the terrible overlap between professional and romantic failure. However at a certain point, Hart is defiantly aware that what he has achieved will endure. It's a magnificent acting job from Hawke. This might become a theater production – but who shall compose the songs?

The film Blue Moon screened at the London film festival; it is released on the 17th of October in the United States, November 14 in the United Kingdom and on 29 January in the land down under.