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Separating from the more prominent colleague in a entertainment duo is a hazardous endeavor. Comedian Larry David experienced it. Likewise Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this witty and heartbreakingly sad chamber piece from writer Robert Kaplow and director Richard Linklater tells the all but unbearable tale of musical theater lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his breakup from Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with theatrical excellence, an dreadful hairpiece and simulated diminutiveness by Ethan Hawke, who is often digitally shrunk in size – but is also occasionally shot standing in an hidden depression to gaze upward sadly at taller characters, addressing Hart’s vertical challenge as José Ferrer in the past acted the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Themes

Hawke gets large, cynical chuckles with Hart’s riffs on the subtle queer themes of the film Casablanca and the overly optimistic stage show he recently attended, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he bitingly labels it Okla-queer. The sexual identity of Lorenz Hart is complex: this film clearly contrasts his gayness with the heterosexual image created for him in the 1948 musical the production Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney portraying Lorenz Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of bisexuality from the lyricist's writings to his protege: young Yale student and aspiring set designer Elizabeth Weiland, played here with heedless girlishness by Margaret Qualley.

As part of the legendary Broadway composing duo with composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was responsible for incomparable songs like The Lady Is a Tramp, Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart's drinking problem, undependability and depressive outbursts, Richard Rodgers broke with him and partnered with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to write Oklahoma! and then a raft of live and cinematic successes.

Sentimental Layers

The picture conceives the deeply depressed Lorenz Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s premiere Manhattan spectators in 1943, looking on with jealous anguish as the production unfolds, loathing its mild sappiness, detesting the punctuation mark at the conclusion of the name, but heartsinkingly aware of how extremely potent it is. He knows a success when he sees one – and feels himself descending into defeat.

Before the break, Hart miserably ducks out and goes to the bar at the establishment Sardi's where the balance of the picture takes place, and waits for the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! cast to arrive for their post-show celebration. He is aware it is his showbiz duty to compliment Richard Rodgers, to pretend everything is all right. With smooth moderation, the performer Andrew Scott plays Richard Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what both are aware is Hart’s humiliation; he offers a sop to his pride in the guise of a brief assignment creating additional tunes for their current production the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale portrays the barkeeper who in traditional style attends empathetically to Hart's monologues of vinegary despair
• Patrick Kennedy portrays writer EB White, to whom Hart unintentionally offers the idea for his kids' story the book Stuart Little
• Qualley plays Elizabeth Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale attendee with whom the movie imagines Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in love

Lorenz Hart has already been jilted by Richard Rodgers. Surely the universe couldn't be that harsh as to get him jilted by Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a youthful female who wants Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can disclose her experiences with guys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can advance her profession.

Acting Excellence

Hawke reveals that Hart to a degree enjoys voyeuristic pleasure in listening to these guys but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Elizabeth Weiland and the picture informs us of a factor rarely touched on in films about the world of musical theatre or the films: the awful convergence between occupational and affectionate loss. However at a certain point, Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has accomplished will persist. It's an outstanding portrayal from Hawke. This might become a theater production – but who would create the songs?

The film Blue Moon premiered at the London cinema festival; it is out on the 17th of October in the USA, 14 November in the UK and on 29 January in Australia.