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Parting ways from the better-known colleague in a performance partnership is a hazardous affair. Comedian Larry David went through it. Likewise Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this humorous and profoundly melancholic chamber piece from writer Robert Kaplow and helmer the director Richard Linklater narrates the almost agonizing tale of musical theater lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with theatrical excellence, an notable toupee and artificial shortness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally shrunk in stature – but is also occasionally recorded standing in an hidden depression to stare up wistfully at heightened personas, facing the lyricist's stature problem as actor José Ferrer previously portrayed the petite Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Elements

Hawke earns large, cynical chuckles with Hart's humorous takes on the hidden gayness of the film Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat stage show he recently attended, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he bitingly labels it Okla-gay. The orientation of Hart is complicated: this picture clearly contrasts his homosexuality with the heterosexual image fabricated for him in the 1948 musical the musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney playing Lorenz Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of dual attraction from the lyricist's writings to his young apprentice: college student at Yale and aspiring set designer the character Elizabeth Weiland, portrayed in this film with carefree youthful femininity by Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the renowned New York theater lyricist-composer pair with composer Rodgers, Hart was accountable for incomparable songs like The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But exasperated with Hart's drinking problem, inconsistency and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers broke with him and partnered with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to create the show Oklahoma! and then a series of live and cinematic successes.

Emotional Depth

The movie imagines the severely despondent Lorenz Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s premiere Manhattan spectators in 1943, observing with jealous anguish as the production unfolds, hating its insipid emotionality, abhorring the punctuation mark at the end of the title, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how extremely potent it is. He understands a smash when he views it – and senses himself falling into defeat.

Even before the break, Lorenz Hart sadly slips away and heads to the bar at Sardi’s where the balance of the picture unfolds, and anticipates the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! company to show up for their after-party. He is aware it is his performance responsibility to congratulate Rodgers, to act as if everything is all right. With polished control, the performer Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what both are aware is the lyricist's shame; he offers a sop to his ego in the appearance of a temporary job composing fresh songs for their ongoing performance the show A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale portrays the bartender who in conventional manner listens sympathetically to Hart’s arias of acerbic misery
• Actor Patrick Kennedy acts as author EB White, to whom Hart unintentionally offers the notion for his children’s book the novel Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley portrays Elizabeth Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Yale attendee with whom the picture imagines Lorenz Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in love

Lorenz Hart has previously been abandoned by Rodgers. Certainly the cosmos wouldn't be that brutal as to get him jilted by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a girl who wishes Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can confide her exploits with young men – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can advance her profession.

Acting Excellence

Hawke reveals that Hart to a degree enjoys observational satisfaction in listening to these young men but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Elizabeth Weiland and the film tells us about an aspect infrequently explored in pictures about the domain of theater music or the movies: the terrible overlap between occupational and affectionate loss. Yet at some level, Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has achieved will endure. It's a magnificent acting job from Ethan Hawke. This may turn into a theater production – but who shall compose the songs?

The film Blue Moon was shown at the London movie festival; it is released on 17 October in the United States, the 14th of November in the Britain and on 29 January in Australia.