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Parting ways from the better-known collaborator in a showbiz double act is a hazardous affair. Larry David went through it. So did Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this humorous and deeply sorrowful small-scale drama from scriptwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater narrates the all but unbearable account of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his split from composer Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with theatrical excellence, an dreadful hairpiece and simulated diminutiveness by Ethan Hawke, who is often digitally reduced in size – but is also sometimes filmed positioned in an unseen pit to stare up wistfully at taller characters, facing Hart's height issue as actor José Ferrer in the past acted the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Themes

Hawke achieves substantial, jaded humor with the character's witty comments on the subtle queer themes of the classic Casablanca and the excessively cheerful stage show he just watched, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he bitingly labels it Okla-homo. The sexual identity of Hart is complex: this picture clearly contrasts his queer identity with the straight persona fabricated for him in the 1948 stage show the musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney portraying Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of dual attraction from Hart’s letters to his protégée: young Yale student and budding theater artist the character Elizabeth Weiland, played here with uninhibited maidenly charm by actress Margaret Qualley.

As part of the legendary musical theater lyricist-composer pair with the composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was responsible for incomparable songs like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But frustrated by Hart's drinking problem, undependability and melancholic episodes, Rodgers broke with him and joined forces with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the musical Oklahoma! and then a multitude of stage and screen smashes.

Psychological Complexity

The movie imagines the severely despondent Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s premiere Manhattan spectators in 1943, looking on with envious despair as the performance continues, loathing its bland sentimentality, detesting the exclamation mark at the finish of the heading, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how devastatingly successful it is. He knows a hit when he watches it – and perceives himself sinking into defeat.

Even before the intermission, Lorenz Hart sadly slips away and heads to the bar at the venue Sardi's where the rest of the film occurs, and anticipates the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! troupe to arrive for their post-show celebration. He knows it is his entertainment obligation to congratulate Rodgers, to act as if all is well. With smooth moderation, Andrew Scott acts as Richard Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what each understands is Hart's embarrassment; he provides a consolation to his ego in the guise of a short-term gig writing new numbers for their existing show the show A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• Bobby Cannavale plays the barkeeper who in conventional manner hears compassionately to the character's soliloquies of vinegary despair
• Patrick Kennedy acts as author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart accidentally gives the idea for his youth literature the book Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley plays the character Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale student with whom the picture imagines Lorenz Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in love

Lorenz Hart has previously been abandoned by Rodgers. Surely the cosmos wouldn't be that brutal as to get him jilted by Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley mercilessly depicts a girl who wants Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can reveal her adventures with guys – as well of course the Broadway power broker who can promote her occupation.

Performance Highlights

Hawke demonstrates that Lorenz Hart partly takes observational satisfaction in listening to these guys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Elizabeth Weiland and the film tells us about something rarely touched on in films about the realm of stage musicals or the cinema: the terrible overlap between career and love defeat. Nevertheless at a certain point, Lorenz Hart is defiantly aware that what he has achieved will endure. It's a magnificent acting job from Ethan Hawke. This may turn into a live show – but who will write the numbers?

The film Blue Moon was shown at the London cinema festival; it is out on October 17 in the USA, November 14 in the Britain and on January 29 in Australia.