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Separating from the more prominent colleague in a entertainment partnership is a dangerous endeavor. Comedian Larry David experienced it. So did Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this humorous and heartbreakingly sad chamber piece from scriptwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater narrates the almost agonizing tale of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart right after his split from Richard Rodgers. He is played with campy brilliance, an unspeakable combover and simulated diminutiveness by Ethan Hawke, who is often digitally shrunk in height – but is also sometimes recorded standing in an unseen pit to look up poignantly at more statuesque figures, confronting Hart’s vertical challenge as José Ferrer previously portrayed the petite Toulouse-Lautrec.

Multifaceted Role and Motifs

Hawke earns big, world-weary laughs with Hart’s riffs on the hidden gayness of the movie Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat musical he just watched, with all the rope-spinning ranch hands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-homo. The sexuality of Lorenz Hart is complex: this movie skillfully juxtaposes his queer identity with the non-queer character created for him in the 1948 musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney playing Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of dual attraction from Hart's correspondence to his protege: youthful Yale attendee and would-be stage designer the character Elizabeth Weiland, played here with carefree youthful femininity by the performer Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the renowned New York theater songwriting team with the composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was in charge of matchless numbers like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But exasperated with the lyricist's addiction, unreliability and gloomy fits, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II to create the show Oklahoma! and then a multitude of live and cinematic successes.

Psychological Complexity

The movie envisions the severely despondent Hart in Oklahoma!’s opening night Manhattan spectators in 1943, looking on with covetous misery as the show proceeds, loathing its bland sentimentality, hating the exclamation mark at the end of the title, but dishearteningly conscious of how devastatingly successful it is. He realizes a smash when he sees one – and feels himself descending into defeat.

Before the break, Lorenz Hart miserably ducks out and makes his way to the bar at the venue Sardi's where the remainder of the movie occurs, and expects the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! company to arrive for their after-party. He realizes it is his entertainment obligation to compliment Richard Rodgers, to act as if everything is all right. With suave restraint, actor Andrew Scott acts as Richard Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable 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 existing show the musical A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale acts as the bartender who in conventional manner listens sympathetically to Hart's monologues of acerbic misery
• Actor Patrick Kennedy plays EB White, to whom Hart accidentally gives the idea for his youth literature the novel Stuart Little
• Qualley acts as Elizabeth Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Yale attendee with whom the movie conceives Lorenz Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in adoration

Hart has previously been abandoned by Richard Rodgers. Undoubtedly the world couldn't be that harsh as to have him dumped by Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a youthful female who wants Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can confide her exploits with young men – as well of course the showbiz connection who can further her career.

Acting Excellence

Hawke demonstrates that Lorenz Hart to a degree enjoys voyeuristic pleasure in listening to these boys but he is also authentically, mournfully enamored with Weiland and the picture tells us about an aspect seldom addressed in pictures about the world of musical theatre or the movies: the terrible overlap between occupational and affectionate loss. Yet at one stage, Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has accomplished will persist. It’s a terrific performance from Ethan Hawke. This might become a stage musical – but who will write the tunes?

The movie Blue Moon screened at the London cinema festival; it is out on 17 October in the United States, November 14 in the UK and on the 29th of January in Australia.