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Separating from the more prominent collaborator in a performance duo is a dangerous business. Comedian Larry David went through it. Likewise Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this clever and profoundly melancholic intimate film from screenwriter Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater recounts the almost agonizing account of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. He is played with theatrical excellence, an notable toupee and fake smallness by Ethan Hawke, who is often technologically minimized in height – but is also at times shot placed in an unseen pit to gaze upward sadly at more statuesque figures, confronting Hart’s vertical challenge as actor José Ferrer in the past acted the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Motifs

Hawke earns large, cynical chuckles with the character's witty comments on the hidden gayness of the film Casablanca and the overly optimistic stage show he’s just been to see, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he bitingly labels it Okla-gay. The orientation of Lorenz Hart is multifaceted: this picture skillfully juxtaposes his queer identity with the heterosexual image created for him in the 1948 theater piece the musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney acting as Lorenz Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexual tendency from the lyricist's writings to his protégée: youthful Yale attendee and aspiring set designer Elizabeth Weiland, acted in this movie with uninhibited maidenly charm by Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the renowned New York theater songwriting team with the composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was accountable for incomparable songs like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But frustrated by Hart’s alcoholism, unreliability and melancholic episodes, Rodgers broke with him and partnered with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the show Oklahoma! and then a series of theater and film hits.

Psychological Complexity

The movie conceives the deeply depressed Lorenz Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s premiere New York audience in 1943, observing with envious despair as the show proceeds, loathing its mild sappiness, hating the exclamation mark at the end of the title, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how lethally effective it is. He understands a hit when he views it – and senses himself falling into unsuccessfulness.

Prior to the interval, Lorenz Hart sadly slips away and goes to the tavern at the venue Sardi's where the balance of the picture occurs, and anticipates the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! cast to show up for their after-party. He realizes it is his entertainment obligation to praise Richard Rodgers, to feign everything is all right. With smooth moderation, the performer Andrew Scott portrays Richard Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what each understands is the lyricist's shame; he provides a consolation to his ego in the guise of a temporary job composing fresh songs for their current production the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Bobby Cannavale plays the bartender who in standard fashion listens sympathetically to Hart’s arias of vinegary despair
• Actor Patrick Kennedy plays writer EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart unintentionally offers the concept for his youth literature the novel Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley acts as the character Weiland, the inaccessibly lovely Yale attendee with whom the film envisions Lorenz Hart to be intricately and masochistically in love

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Richard Rodgers. Surely the world can’t be so cruel as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley pitilessly acts a youthful female who wishes Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can reveal her adventures with guys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can promote her occupation.

Standout Roles

Hawke shows that Lorenz Hart partly takes observational satisfaction in learning of these young men but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Elizabeth Weiland and the film tells us about something seldom addressed in films about the domain of theater music or the movies: the dreadful intersection between occupational and affectionate loss. Nevertheless at some level, Lorenz Hart is rebelliously conscious that what he has achieved will persist. It’s a terrific performance from Hawke. This could be a theater production – but who shall compose the songs?

Blue Moon was shown at the London film festival; it is out on 17 October in the US, the 14th of November in the United Kingdom and on 29 January in the land down under.