"The sexual identity of Hart is complex: this film effectively triangulates his gayness with the straight persona invented for him in the 1948 musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney playing Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexuality from Hart's letters to his protege: young Yale student and would-be stage designer Elizabeth Weiland, played here with heedless girlishness by Margaret Qualley."
"But exasperated with Hart's alcoholism, unreliability and depressive outbursts, Rodgers broke with him and partnered with Oscar Hammerstein II to write Oklahoma! and then a raft of stage and screen smashes. The movie imagines the deeply depressed Hart in Oklahoma!'s first-night New York audience in 1943, looking on with envious despair as the show proceeds, despising its bland sentimentality, hating the exclamation mark at the end of the title, but heartsinkingly aware"
A chamber film portrays Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart immediately after his split from composer Richard Rodgers, isolating his descent into depression, alcoholism, and creative anguish. Ethan Hawke performs Hart with campy brilliance, a manic combover, and filmed effects that reduce his stature to emphasize humiliation and vulnerability. The narrative triangulates Hart's complex sexual identity, juxtaposing his hidden gayness, a straight persona in the 1948 musical Words and Music, and intimate letters to a young female protege. Rodgers abandons Hart for Oscar Hammerstein II and Oklahoma!, leaving Hart to watch the show's triumphant premiere with envious despair and wounded pride.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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