Lorenz Hart's life, and more specifically his partnership with Richard Rodgers, was the subject of the highly fictionalised 1948 biopic Words and Music. Blue Moon also takes some liberties with the truth, creating out of whole cloth Hart meeting author E.B. White and a teenaged Stephen Sondheim. Through these fabrications, and Hart's encounters with Richard Rodgers and Elizabeth Weiland, a forlorn portrait emerges of a self-destructive artist witnessing his own demise.

After attending the opening night of ‘Oklahoma!’, Lorenz Hart holds court at Sardi’s while preparations are made to celebrate his partner's first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II. Despite the rudimentary efforts of a bartender, the alcoholic Hart steals himself with the odd shot of whiskey, hoping to consummate his love for ‘the irreplaceable Elizabeth’. As the night wears on and Sardi's becomes more crowded, Hart increasingly cuts a solitary figure.

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The scenes between Ethan Hawke and Andrew Scott as the former songwriting team are amongst this biopic’s strongest. Hart’s desperate efforts to sustain their partnership and Rodgers’ gradual realisation that such a move may be impractical are achingly realised by both actors.  Unfortunately, the film spends too much time on the supposed relationship between Hart and Weiland. Though the payoff is rewarding, its potency is diminished by being telegraphed from afar.

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During one of his imagined encounters, Hart advises George Roy Hill, the future director of such films as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting to be careful of love stories. “Think about friendship stories. That’s where the really enduring stuff lives”. If only the filmmakers had heeded Hart’s advice.