🔗 Share this article

Breaking up from the more prominent partner in a entertainment partnership is a dangerous business. Larry David experienced it. Likewise Musician Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this witty and heartbreakingly sad chamber piece from screenwriter Robert Kaplow and director Richard Linklater recounts the almost agonizing tale of songwriter for Broadway the lyricist Lorenz Hart shortly following his breakup from Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with campy brilliance, an notable toupee and simulated diminutiveness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally shrunk in size – but is also occasionally filmed standing in an hidden depression to gaze upward sadly at more statuesque figures, addressing Hart’s vertical challenge as actor José Ferrer previously portrayed the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec.

Layered Persona and Motifs

Hawke achieves large, cynical chuckles with Hart's humorous takes on the subtle queer themes of the classic Casablanca and the overly optimistic theater production he just watched, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he acidly calls it Okla-homo. The sexuality of Hart is complex: this movie skillfully juxtaposes his queer identity with the straight persona created for him in the 1948 theater piece the musical Words and Music (with actor Mickey Rooney portraying Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of bisexuality from the lyricist's writings to his young apprentice: young Yale student and would-be stage designer Elizabeth Weiland, played here with carefree youthful femininity by Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the legendary New York theater lyricist-composer pair with musician Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was responsible for incomparable songs like The Lady Is a Tramp, the number Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart’s alcoholism, unreliability and gloomy fits, Rodgers ended their partnership and joined forces with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to create the show Oklahoma! and then a series of stage and screen smashes.

Sentimental Layers

The film imagines the severely despondent Lorenz Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s premiere New York audience in 1943, gazing with covetous misery as the show proceeds, despising its mild sappiness, detesting the punctuation mark at the end of the title, but dishearteningly conscious of how extremely potent it is. He understands a success when he sees one – and senses himself falling into failure.

Even before the break, Lorenz Hart miserably ducks out and heads to the pub at Sardi’s where the rest of the film unfolds, and anticipates the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! cast to appear for their post-show celebration. He realizes it is his performance responsibility to compliment Richard Rodgers, to feign things are fine. With polished control, the performer Andrew Scott portrays Rodgers, obviously uncomfortable at what they both know is Hart’s humiliation; he gives a pacifier to his pride in the guise of a short-term gig creating additional tunes for their existing show the show A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• Bobby Cannavale portrays the bartender who in traditional style hears compassionately to Hart’s arias of vinegary despair
• Actor Patrick Kennedy plays author EB White, to whom Hart unintentionally offers the idea for his kids' story the novel Stuart Little
• The actress Qualley plays Elizabeth Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Yale attendee with whom the film imagines Hart to be intricately and masochistically in affection

Hart has already been jilted by Richard Rodgers. Certainly the cosmos couldn't be that harsh as to get him jilted by Weiland as well? But Qualley ruthlessly portrays a girl who desires Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can disclose her experiences with young men – as well of course the theater industry influencer who can promote her occupation.

Performance Highlights

Hawke shows that Hart somewhat derives observational satisfaction in hearing about these boys but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Weiland and the picture tells us about something rarely touched on in films about the realm of stage musicals or the films: the terrible overlap between professional and romantic failure. Yet at one stage, Hart is defiantly aware that what he has accomplished will endure. It's an outstanding portrayal from Hawke. This may turn into a live show – but who would create the numbers?

Blue Moon was shown at the London cinema festival; it is released on 17 October in the US, 14 November in the UK and on 29 January in the Australian continent.