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Parting ways from the more prominent partner in a entertainment double act is a risky affair. Comedian Larry David did it. Likewise Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this witty and profoundly melancholic intimate film from writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker Richard Linklater narrates the nearly intolerable account of Broadway lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with campy brilliance, an notable toupee and fake smallness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is regularly technologically minimized in height – but is also sometimes filmed standing in an hidden depression to look up poignantly at heightened personas, confronting Hart's height issue as José Ferrer once played the petite artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Themes

Hawke earns big, world-weary laughs with the character's witty comments on the subtle queer themes of the movie Casablanca and the overly optimistic theater production he’s just been to see, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-homo. The sexuality of Lorenz Hart is multifaceted: this picture skillfully juxtaposes his gayness with the non-queer character created for him in the 1948 musical the production Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney portraying Lorenz Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of dual attraction from the lyricist's writings to his protege: youthful Yale attendee and budding theater artist Weiland, acted in this movie with carefree youthful femininity by the performer Margaret Qualley.

As part of the famous musical theater composing duo with composer Rodgers, Hart was accountable for matchless numbers like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But annoyed at the lyricist's addiction, unreliability and melancholic episodes, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the musical Oklahoma! and then a raft of live and cinematic successes.

Sentimental Layers

The movie imagines the deeply depressed Lorenz Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s first-night New York audience in 1943, observing with envious despair as the production unfolds, hating its insipid emotionality, detesting the punctuation mark at the end of the title, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how lethally effective it is. He understands a success when he sees one – and senses himself falling into unsuccessfulness.

Prior to the intermission, Hart unhappily departs and heads to the pub at the venue Sardi's where the balance of the picture takes place, and anticipates the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! cast to arrive for their after-party. He is aware it is his performance responsibility to praise Rodgers, to feign all is well. With polished control, Andrew Scott portrays Richard Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what both are aware is the lyricist's shame; he offers a sop to his ego in the guise of a brief assignment writing new numbers for their existing show A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Bobby Cannavale acts as the barman who in conventional manner hears compassionately to Hart's monologues of vinegary despair
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy portrays writer EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart unintentionally offers the notion for his children’s book the novel Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley acts as Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Yale student with whom the picture conceives Lorenz Hart to be intricately and masochistically in love

Hart has already been jilted by Rodgers. Certainly the universe wouldn't be that brutal as to get him jilted by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley ruthlessly portrays a young woman who wishes Lorenz Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can disclose her experiences with boys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can further her career.

Acting Excellence

Hawke shows that Lorenz Hart to a degree enjoys voyeuristic pleasure in learning of these boys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Elizabeth Weiland and the picture reveals to us a factor seldom addressed in pictures about the domain of theater music or the films: the awful convergence between career and love defeat. Nevertheless at one stage, Lorenz Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has attained will endure. It's a magnificent acting job from Ethan Hawke. This might become a live show – but who would create the tunes?

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