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Breaking up from the better-known partner in a performance double act is a dangerous affair. Comedian Larry David did it. Likewise Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this clever and heartbreakingly sad small-scale drama from screenwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and helmer Richard Linklater recounts the all but unbearable story of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his split from composer Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with theatrical excellence, an unspeakable combover and fake smallness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is frequently digitally reduced in size – but is also sometimes recorded standing in an unseen pit to look up poignantly at more statuesque figures, facing Hart's height issue as actor José Ferrer previously portrayed the diminutive artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Themes

Hawke achieves large, cynical chuckles with Hart's humorous takes on the hidden gayness of the movie Casablanca and the overly optimistic theater production he’s just been to see, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-queer. The orientation of Lorenz Hart is complex: this picture clearly contrasts his homosexuality with the straight persona fabricated for him in the 1948 theater piece Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney playing Lorenz Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart’s letters to his protege: youthful Yale attendee and aspiring set designer Elizabeth Weiland, played here with uninhibited maidenly charm by the performer Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the renowned New York theater lyricist-composer pair with composer Rodgers, Hart was accountable for matchless numbers like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But frustrated by the lyricist's addiction, undependability and gloomy fits, Rodgers severed ties with him and teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the show Oklahoma! and then a series of stage and screen smashes.

Sentimental Layers

The film envisions the severely despondent Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s premiere New York audience in 1943, observing with envious despair as the performance continues, loathing its mild sappiness, detesting the exclamation mark at the end of the title, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how lethally effective it is. He knows a smash when he watches it – and perceives himself sinking into defeat.

Prior to the break, Hart unhappily departs and heads to the tavern at Sardi’s where the rest of the film occurs, and waits for the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! troupe to appear for their post-show celebration. He knows it is his showbiz duty to praise Richard Rodgers, to feign things are fine. With suave restraint, Andrew Scott plays Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what they both know is Hart’s humiliation; he gives a pacifier to his pride in the appearance of a short-term gig writing new numbers for their existing show A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.

• Bobby Cannavale plays the barkeeper who in traditional style hears compassionately to Hart’s arias of vinegary despair
• Actor Patrick Kennedy plays author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart unintentionally offers the concept for his children’s book the novel Stuart Little
• Qualley portrays the character Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Yale attendee with whom the movie envisions Lorenz Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in adoration

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Rodgers. Surely the cosmos wouldn't be that brutal as to have him dumped by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley ruthlessly portrays a girl who wishes Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can confide her adventures with boys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can further her career.

Acting Excellence

Hawke demonstrates that Hart to a degree enjoys observational satisfaction in learning of these young men but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Elizabeth Weiland and the film tells us about something rarely touched on in films about the world of musical theatre or the movies: the awful convergence between career and love defeat. However at a certain point, Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has achieved will survive. It's an outstanding portrayal from Ethan Hawke. This could be a theater production – but who will write the tunes?

The movie Blue Moon premiered at the London film festival; it is released on October 17 in the USA, November 14 in the United Kingdom and on 29 January in the Australian continent.