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Breaking up from the more prominent collaborator in a showbiz double act is a hazardous business. Comedian Larry David did it. So did Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this witty and deeply sorrowful chamber piece from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater narrates the nearly intolerable story of musical theater lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his breakup 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 look up poignantly at taller characters, facing Hart's height issue as José Ferrer in the past acted the petite artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Motifs

Hawke earns substantial, jaded humor with the character's witty comments on the subtle queer themes of the movie Casablanca and the excessively cheerful theater production he’s just been to see, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-homo. The sexuality of Hart is multifaceted: this movie effectively triangulates his gayness with the straight persona fabricated for him in the 1948 stage show Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney portraying Hart); it intelligently infers a kind of bisexuality from Hart's correspondence to his young apprentice: youthful Yale attendee and aspiring set designer the character Elizabeth Weiland, portrayed in this film with carefree youthful femininity by actress Margaret Qualley.

As part of the famous Broadway songwriting team with the composer Rodgers, Hart was responsible for incomparable songs like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But frustrated by Hart’s alcoholism, inconsistency and melancholic episodes, Richard Rodgers broke with him and teamed up with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to create the musical Oklahoma! and then a multitude of live and cinematic successes.

Sentimental Layers

The film imagines the profoundly saddened Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s premiere Manhattan spectators in 1943, looking on with envious despair as the show proceeds, despising its mild sappiness, hating the exclamation point at the finish of the heading, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how lethally effective it is. He understands a smash when he sees one – and perceives himself sinking into unsuccessfulness.

Even before the interval, Hart unhappily departs and heads to the tavern at Sardi’s where the rest of the film occurs, and anticipates the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! troupe to appear for their following-event gathering. He is aware it is his showbiz duty to congratulate Rodgers, to feign things are fine. With smooth moderation, Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what they both know is Hart's embarrassment; he gives a pacifier to his ego in the appearance of a brief assignment creating additional tunes for their current production the show A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale portrays the bartender who in standard fashion 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 the novel Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley portrays Elizabeth Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale attendee with whom the film imagines Hart to be complexly and self-destructively in affection

Lorenz Hart has already been jilted by Rodgers. Surely the universe can’t be so cruel 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 disclose her exploits with boys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can promote her occupation.

Acting Excellence

Hawke shows that Hart partly takes spectator's delight in learning of these boys but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Weiland and the picture informs us of an aspect rarely touched on in pictures about the realm of stage musicals or the films: the awful convergence between professional and romantic failure. However at one stage, Lorenz Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has attained will survive. It's an outstanding portrayal from Hawke. This might become a theater production – but who will write the tunes?

Blue Moon screened at the London film festival; it is out on October 17 in the United States, November 14 in the Britain and on January 29 in the Australian continent.