Blue Moon Review: The Actor Ethan Hawke Shines in Richard Linklater's Poignant Broadway Split Story

Breaking up from the more famous collaborator in a entertainment duo is a hazardous endeavor. Comedian Larry David did it. The same for Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this witty and deeply sorrowful small-scale drama from screenwriter the writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker Richard Linklater narrates the nearly intolerable story of songwriter for Broadway Lorenz Hart shortly following his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. He is played with theatrical excellence, an notable toupee and simulated diminutiveness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is frequently digitally reduced in size – but is also occasionally recorded standing in an unseen pit to look up poignantly at taller characters, addressing Hart's height issue as actor José Ferrer in the past acted the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Themes

Hawke gets large, cynical chuckles with Hart's humorous takes on the hidden gayness of the classic Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat musical he recently attended, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he bitingly labels it Okla-homo. The orientation of Lorenz Hart is complicated: this picture effectively triangulates his homosexuality with the straight persona invented for him in the 1948 musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney acting as Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexuality from Hart's correspondence to his young apprentice: young Yale student and aspiring set designer the character Elizabeth Weiland, acted in this movie with carefree youthful femininity by Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the legendary Broadway lyricist-composer pair with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was responsible for matchless numbers like The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But exasperated with Hart's drinking problem, inconsistency and melancholic episodes, Rodgers broke with him and joined forces with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to create the musical Oklahoma! and then a series of stage and screen smashes.

Emotional Depth

The film conceives the deeply depressed Lorenz Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s opening night NYC crowd in 1943, gazing with envious despair as the production unfolds, loathing its bland sentimentality, abhorring the punctuation mark at the finish of the heading, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how devastatingly successful it is. He realizes a smash when he watches it – and senses himself falling into failure.

Even before the intermission, Lorenz Hart sadly slips away and heads to the tavern at Sardi’s where the remainder of the movie takes place, and expects the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! company to show up for their after-party. He knows it is his showbiz duty to compliment Richard Rodgers, to pretend all is well. With suave restraint, the performer Andrew Scott portrays Richard Rodgers, clearly embarrassed at what each understands is the lyricist's shame; he offers a sop to his self-esteem in the appearance of a brief assignment writing new numbers for their current production the show A Connecticut Yankee, which simply intensifies the pain.

• Bobby Cannavale acts as the bartender who in traditional style attends empathetically to Hart's monologues of bitter despondency
• Patrick Kennedy acts as author EB White, to whom Lorenz Hart inadvertently provides the notion for his youth literature Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley plays Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Yale student with whom the film conceives Lorenz Hart to be intricately and masochistically in affection

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Richard Rodgers. Surely the world wouldn't be that brutal as to cause him to be spurned by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Qualley mercilessly depicts a girl who wants Hart to be the giggly, sexually unthreatening intimate to whom she can confide her exploits with guys – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can further her career.

Acting Excellence

Hawke demonstrates that Hart somewhat derives voyeuristic pleasure in listening to these boys but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Elizabeth Weiland and the film informs us of something infrequently explored in films about the world of musical theatre or the movies: the dreadful intersection between professional and romantic failure. Yet at a certain point, Hart is defiantly aware that what he has achieved will persist. It's a magnificent acting job from Hawke. This might become a theater production – but who will write the tunes?

Blue Moon screened at the London film festival; it is out on 17 October in the USA, November 14 in the UK and on the 29th of January in the land down under.