Parting ways from the more famous partner in a showbiz double act is a risky business. Larry David went through it. So did Andrew Ridgeley. Currently, this humorous and heartbreakingly sad small-scale drama from scriptwriter Robert Kaplow and director the director Richard Linklater tells the all but unbearable story of songwriter for Broadway the lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his breakup from composer Richard Rodgers. The character is acted with campy brilliance, an dreadful hairpiece and simulated diminutiveness by actor Ethan Hawke, who is frequently technologically minimized in stature – but is also at times filmed placed in an unseen pit to stare up wistfully at taller characters, confronting Hart's height issue as actor José Ferrer previously portrayed the diminutive artist Toulouse-Lautrec.
Hawke achieves big, world-weary laughs with the character's witty comments on the subtle queer themes of the classic Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat theater production he’s just been to see, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he bitingly labels it Okla-gay. The sexuality of Lorenz Hart is complicated: this film clearly contrasts his homosexuality with the non-queer character invented for him in the 1948 musical the production Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney playing Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexual tendency from the lyricist's writings to his young apprentice: young Yale student and would-be stage designer Weiland, portrayed in this film with heedless girlishness by the performer Margaret Qualley.
As part of the renowned musical theater composing duo with the composer Rodgers, Hart was responsible for unparalleled tunes like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the standard My Funny Valentine and of course Blue Moon. But exasperated with the lyricist's addiction, unreliability and depressive outbursts, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and teamed up with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to compose the show Oklahoma! and then a series of stage and screen smashes.
The movie conceives the severely despondent Lorenz Hart in the show Oklahoma!'s opening night New York audience in 1943, gazing with envious despair as the performance continues, hating its insipid emotionality, detesting the exclamation mark at the finish of the heading, but soul-crushingly cognizant of how extremely potent it is. He understands a smash when he views it – and senses himself falling into defeat.
Prior to the intermission, Lorenz Hart miserably ducks out and heads to the bar at Sardi’s where the rest of the film occurs, and waits for the (certainly) victorious Oklahoma! company to arrive for their after-party. He knows it is his showbiz duty to praise Richard Rodgers, to feign all is well. With suave restraint, Andrew Scott portrays Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what they both know is Hart's embarrassment; he gives a pacifier to his self-esteem in the guise of a short-term gig writing new numbers for their ongoing performance A Connecticut Yankee, which only makes it worse.
Hart has already been jilted by Richard Rodgers. Certainly the universe couldn't be that harsh as to cause him to be spurned by Weiland as well? But Qualley ruthlessly portrays a young woman who desires Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can disclose her exploits with boys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can further her career.
Hawke demonstrates that Hart somewhat derives observational satisfaction in learning of these guys but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Weiland and the film tells us about an aspect seldom addressed in films about the world of musical theatre or the films: the terrible overlap between occupational and affectionate loss. Nevertheless at a certain point, Lorenz Hart is defiantly aware 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 film Blue Moon premiered at the London cinema festival; it is available on October 17 in the USA, November 14 in the United Kingdom and on the 29th of January in Australia.
Elara is a financial strategist with over a decade of experience in wealth management and entrepreneurship.
