🔗 Share this article

Parting ways from the more prominent colleague in a performance double act is a dangerous business. Larry David experienced it. Likewise Andrew Ridgeley. Presently, this clever and deeply sorrowful small-scale drama from writer Robert Kaplow and filmmaker the director Richard Linklater narrates the all but unbearable account of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his separation from Richard Rodgers. His role is portrayed with theatrical excellence, an notable toupee and simulated diminutiveness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is frequently digitally shrunk in height – but is also at times shot placed in an hidden depression to look up poignantly at heightened personas, facing Hart’s vertical challenge as actor José Ferrer previously portrayed the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Elements

Hawke achieves large, cynical chuckles with the character's witty comments on the concealed homosexuality of the movie Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he recently attended, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he acidly calls it Okla-gay. The orientation of Lorenz Hart is multifaceted: this movie clearly contrasts his homosexuality with the non-queer character fabricated for him in the 1948 musical the musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney portraying Hart); it shrewdly deduces a kind of bisexual tendency from Hart's correspondence to his protege: youthful Yale attendee and would-be stage designer Weiland, portrayed in this film with uninhibited maidenly charm by the performer Margaret Qualley.

As a component of the famous New York theater lyricist-composer pair with the composer Rodgers, Hart was in charge of matchless numbers like the song The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, My Funny Valentine and of course the titular Blue Moon. But exasperated with the lyricist's addiction, undependability and depressive outbursts, Richard Rodgers broke with him and joined forces with the writer Oscar Hammerstein II to create the show Oklahoma! and then a multitude of theater and film hits.

Psychological Complexity

The film envisions the deeply depressed Lorenz Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s opening night NYC crowd in the year 1943, gazing with jealous anguish as the show proceeds, loathing its bland sentimentality, detesting the exclamation point at the conclusion of the name, but heartsinkingly aware of how lethally effective it is. He understands a hit when he views it – and feels himself descending into defeat.

Prior to the break, Hart unhappily departs and makes his way to the tavern at the establishment Sardi's where the remainder of the movie takes place, and expects the (inevitably) triumphant Oklahoma! cast to show up for their post-show celebration. He knows it is his performance responsibility to compliment Rodgers, to feign all is well. With polished control, Andrew Scott plays Richard Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what both are aware is Hart's embarrassment; he provides a consolation to his self-esteem in the appearance of a temporary job writing new numbers for their ongoing performance the show A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• Actor Bobby Cannavale acts as the bartender who in conventional manner hears compassionately to Hart's monologues of acerbic misery
• Patrick Kennedy plays author EB White, to whom Hart inadvertently provides the concept for his children’s book Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley acts as the character Weiland, the impossibly gorgeous Ivy League pupil with whom the film conceives Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in adoration

Lorenz Hart has already been jilted by Richard Rodgers. Surely the universe can’t be so cruel as to get him jilted by Weiland as well? But Qualley pitilessly acts a young woman who wants Lorenz Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can reveal her experiences with guys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can advance her profession.

Performance Highlights

Hawke shows that Lorenz Hart partly takes spectator's delight in learning of these boys but he is also genuinely, tragically besotted with Elizabeth Weiland and the picture informs us of an aspect infrequently explored in pictures about the domain of theater music or the films: the terrible overlap between career and love defeat. However at one stage, Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has accomplished will persist. It’s a terrific performance from Ethan Hawke. This could be a theater production – but who shall compose the tunes?

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