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Separating from the more prominent partner in a entertainment duo is a hazardous endeavor. Comedian Larry David experienced it. So did Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this clever and deeply sorrowful intimate film from writer Robert Kaplow and helmer the director Richard Linklater tells the nearly intolerable tale of Broadway lyricist the lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his split from Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with theatrical excellence, an notable toupee and simulated diminutiveness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is frequently digitally shrunk in stature – but is also at times filmed positioned in an unseen pit to look up poignantly at heightened personas, facing Hart’s vertical challenge as actor José Ferrer in the past acted the petite artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Elements

Hawke earns substantial, jaded humor with Hart's humorous takes on the subtle queer themes of the film Casablanca and the excessively cheerful theater production he’s just been to see, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he bitingly labels it Okla-homo. The orientation of Hart is complex: this movie skillfully juxtaposes his homosexuality with the straight persona created for him in the 1948 musical the musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney portraying Lorenz Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart's correspondence to his young apprentice: youthful Yale attendee and budding theater artist Elizabeth Weiland, portrayed in this film with heedless girlishness by actress Margaret Qualley.

As part of the legendary New York theater lyricist-composer pair with musician Richard Rodgers, Hart was responsible for incomparable songs like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But frustrated by Hart's drinking problem, inconsistency and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and partnered with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to create the show Oklahoma! and then a multitude of theater and film hits.

Sentimental Layers

The picture imagines the severely despondent Hart in Oklahoma!’s premiere NYC crowd in the year 1943, looking on with jealous anguish as the production unfolds, loathing its insipid emotionality, abhorring the exclamation mark at the conclusion of the name, but heartsinkingly aware of how devastatingly successful it is. He realizes a hit when he watches it – and senses himself falling into unsuccessfulness.

Prior to the intermission, Hart sadly slips away and makes his way to the pub at Sardi’s where the rest of the film unfolds, and waits for the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! troupe to appear for their after-party. He realizes it is his entertainment obligation to congratulate Richard Rodgers, to act as if things are fine. With suave restraint, Andrew Scott portrays Richard Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what they both know is Hart’s humiliation; he gives a pacifier to his self-esteem in the form of a short-term gig writing new numbers for their current production A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale portrays the barkeeper who in standard fashion listens sympathetically to the character's soliloquies of acerbic misery
• Actor Patrick Kennedy plays writer EB White, to whom Hart unintentionally offers the idea for his kids' story the novel Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley plays Elizabeth Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale student with whom the picture conceives Hart to be intricately and masochistically in love

Hart has previously been abandoned by Rodgers. Certainly the cosmos couldn't be that harsh as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley ruthlessly portrays a girl who wants Lorenz Hart to be the chuckling, non-sexual confidant to whom she can reveal her adventures with boys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can further her career.

Performance Highlights

Hawke reveals that Hart partly takes observational satisfaction in learning of these young men but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Weiland and the film reveals to us something rarely touched on in movies about the domain of theater music or the movies: the dreadful intersection between professional and romantic failure. Nevertheless at some level, Lorenz Hart is defiantly aware that what he has achieved will persist. It’s a terrific performance from Ethan Hawke. This might become a live show – but who shall compose the numbers?

The film Blue Moon was shown at the London film festival; it is available on October 17 in the USA, the 14th of November in the Britain and on the 29th of January in the Australian continent.