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Separating from the more prominent collaborator in a performance double act is a hazardous business. Larry David went through it. The same for Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this witty and heartbreakingly sad chamber piece from writer Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater tells the almost agonizing account of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his separation from composer Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with flamboyant genius, an dreadful hairpiece and artificial shortness by Ethan Hawke, who is often digitally shrunk in height – but is also sometimes recorded standing in an hidden depression to gaze upward sadly at more statuesque figures, facing the lyricist's stature problem as actor José Ferrer in the past acted the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Themes

Hawke achieves substantial, jaded humor with Hart's humorous takes on the concealed homosexuality of the classic Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he just watched, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he acidly calls it Okla-gay. The sexual identity of Hart is multifaceted: this film skillfully juxtaposes his queer identity with the heterosexual image invented for him in the 1948 stage show the production Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney acting as Lorenz Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of dual attraction from the lyricist's writings to his young apprentice: college student at Yale and aspiring set designer Weiland, portrayed in this film with heedless girlishness by the performer Margaret Qualley.

As part of the renowned Broadway songwriting team with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was responsible for unparalleled tunes like The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart's drinking problem, undependability and depressive outbursts, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and partnered with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the show Oklahoma! and then a series of live and cinematic successes.

Emotional Depth

The movie envisions the deeply depressed Lorenz Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s premiere Manhattan spectators in 1943, looking on with covetous misery as the production unfolds, despising its insipid emotionality, hating the exclamation point at the conclusion of the name, but dishearteningly conscious of how devastatingly successful it is. He realizes a success when he sees one – and perceives himself sinking into failure.

Before the intermission, Lorenz Hart miserably ducks out and goes to the bar at the venue Sardi's where the balance of the picture takes place, and waits for the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! troupe to arrive for their after-party. He is aware it is his showbiz duty to praise Rodgers, to pretend everything is all right. With smooth moderation, actor Andrew Scott acts as Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what they both know is the lyricist's shame; he offers a sop to his ego in the guise of a short-term gig writing new numbers for their ongoing performance the show A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale acts as the barman who in traditional style listens sympathetically to Hart's monologues of vinegary despair
• The thespian Patrick Kennedy acts as author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart accidentally gives the concept for his youth literature Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley portrays the character Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Ivy League pupil with whom the picture conceives Hart to be intricately and masochistically in adoration

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Rodgers. Undoubtedly the world wouldn't be that brutal as to get him jilted by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley mercilessly depicts a young woman who wishes Lorenz Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can confide her exploits with guys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can promote her occupation.

Acting Excellence

Hawke shows that Hart to a degree enjoys spectator's delight in learning of these young men but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Weiland and the movie reveals to us an aspect infrequently explored in pictures about the realm of stage musicals or the cinema: the dreadful intersection between occupational and affectionate loss. Yet at some level, Hart is defiantly aware that what he has attained will survive. It's a magnificent acting job from Hawke. This could be a theater production – but who would create the songs?

The film Blue Moon screened at the London film festival; it is available on the 17th of October in the USA, November 14 in the UK and on the 29th of January in the land down under.