Premiering in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, the Texan auteur’s new film – his 22nd, and the first of two due for release in this year alone – boasts a fine, quirky and courageous performance from Ethan Hawke, but it’s a stagey affair which at times becomes very stilted.
Hawke plays the legendary Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart (Hawke), the writer of classic songs such as “Blue Moon” and “My Funny Valentine”.
We meet him in 1943, his glory days long behind him: the story begins with Hart collapsing in a rainswept New York alleyway, washed up at 47 and in the final days of his life.
We listen as Hart swaps stories with New Yorker writer EB White (Patrick Kennedy), whom he admires, or chatters away about his love of Casablanca with the barman.
Hart has been overtaken by friends and rivals who used to look up to him, most notably by the younger and far more dynamic Richard Rodgers (a dashing Andrew Scott).
