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Parting ways from the more prominent collaborator in a performance partnership is a dangerous endeavor. Comedian Larry David did it. The same for Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this witty and heartbreakingly sad small-scale drama from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater tells the almost agonizing story of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. He is played with theatrical excellence, an notable toupee and fake smallness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is often digitally shrunk in height – but is also sometimes filmed positioned in an off-camera hole to stare up wistfully at taller characters, confronting Hart's height issue as actor José Ferrer in the past acted the diminutive artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Motifs

Hawke achieves big, world-weary laughs with Hart’s riffs on the concealed homosexuality of the movie Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat musical he recently attended, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he acidly calls it Okla-gay. The sexuality of Hart is complicated: this film effectively triangulates his gayness with the straight persona invented for him in the 1948 stage show the musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney playing Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart's correspondence to his protege: college student at Yale and would-be stage designer the character Elizabeth Weiland, played here with carefree youthful femininity by Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the renowned musical theater songwriting team with the composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was responsible 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 annoyed at Hart's drinking problem, undependability and melancholic episodes, Richard Rodgers broke with him and teamed up with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to write the show Oklahoma! and then a series of stage and screen smashes.

Emotional Depth

The film imagines the severely despondent Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s premiere NYC crowd in 1943, gazing with jealous anguish as the performance continues, hating its mild sappiness, hating the exclamation mark at the end of the title, but dishearteningly conscious of how devastatingly successful it is. He knows a hit when he sees one – and perceives himself sinking into unsuccessfulness.

Prior to the break, Lorenz Hart sadly slips away and goes to the tavern at the establishment Sardi's where the rest of the film takes place, and expects the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! troupe to arrive for their after-party. He knows it is his entertainment obligation to congratulate Richard Rodgers, to act as if things are fine. With polished control, Andrew Scott acts as Richard Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what each understands is the lyricist's shame; he offers a sop to his ego in the appearance of a short-term gig composing fresh songs for their ongoing performance A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale plays the barman who in conventional manner attends empathetically to Hart's monologues of bitter despondency
• Patrick Kennedy portrays author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart unintentionally offers the idea for his kids' story Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley acts as Elizabeth Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale attendee with whom the movie conceives Lorenz Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in affection

Hart has already been jilted by Rodgers. Undoubtedly the universe couldn't be that harsh as to have him dumped by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley mercilessly depicts a young woman who wishes Lorenz Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can confide her exploits with boys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can further her career.

Acting Excellence

Hawke shows that Lorenz Hart somewhat derives observational satisfaction in listening to these guys but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Weiland and the film informs us of an aspect seldom addressed in movies about the realm of stage musicals or the films: the terrible overlap between career and love defeat. However at a certain point, Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has accomplished will persist. It's an outstanding portrayal from Ethan Hawke. This could be a theater production – but who shall compose the songs?

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