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Parting ways from the better-known partner in a performance duo is a hazardous business. Comedian Larry David went through it. Likewise Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this humorous and profoundly melancholic intimate film from scriptwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker Richard Linklater tells the nearly intolerable story of songwriter for Broadway the lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with campy brilliance, an notable toupee and simulated diminutiveness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is often digitally shrunk in size – but is also sometimes filmed positioned in an unseen pit to stare up wistfully at heightened personas, facing Hart's height issue as José Ferrer once played the diminutive artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Elements

Hawke gets substantial, jaded humor with Hart's humorous takes on the subtle queer themes of the film Casablanca and the overly optimistic musical he recently attended, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-gay. The orientation of Hart is complicated: this picture effectively triangulates his gayness with the heterosexual image fabricated for him in the 1948 stage show Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney playing Lorenz Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of dual attraction from the lyricist's writings to his protégée: young Yale student and budding theater artist Weiland, played here with heedless girlishness by Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the renowned Broadway composing duo with composer Rodgers, Hart was accountable for unparalleled tunes like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But exasperated with Hart's drinking problem, undependability and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers broke with him and teamed up with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the musical Oklahoma! and then a series of stage and screen smashes.

Sentimental Layers

The movie conceives the profoundly saddened Lorenz Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s premiere New York audience in the year 1943, gazing with envious despair as the performance continues, despising its mild sappiness, hating the punctuation mark at the end of the title, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how devastatingly successful it is. He understands a success when he watches it – and feels himself descending into defeat.

Prior to the break, Hart unhappily departs and makes his way to the bar at the venue Sardi's where the rest of the film unfolds, and expects the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! cast to appear for their post-show celebration. He is aware it is his showbiz duty to congratulate Rodgers, to feign all is well. With suave restraint, Andrew Scott acts as Richard Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what both are aware is Hart's embarrassment; he gives a pacifier to his pride in the guise of a temporary job composing fresh songs for their current production the show A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale plays the barman who in traditional style hears compassionately to the character's soliloquies of acerbic misery
• Actor Patrick Kennedy plays author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart inadvertently provides the idea for his children’s book the novel Stuart Little
• Qualley acts as Elizabeth Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale student with whom the picture imagines Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in love

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Richard Rodgers. Undoubtedly the world couldn't be that harsh as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a girl who wants Lorenz Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can confide her adventures with boys – as well of course the Broadway power broker who can promote her occupation.

Standout Roles

Hawke shows that Hart somewhat derives observational satisfaction in hearing about these guys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Weiland and the movie tells us about an aspect rarely touched on in films about the realm of stage musicals or the films: the dreadful intersection between occupational and affectionate loss. Nevertheless at some level, Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has accomplished will endure. It's an outstanding portrayal from Hawke. This might become a theater production – but who will write the songs?

Blue Moon screened at the London cinema festival; it is available on October 17 in the United States, November 14 in the United Kingdom and on January 29 in Australia.