(MENAFN- The Conversation) Does the truth matter in a film about historical events? This question sits at the heart of any biographical drama, shaping how we judge the balance between storytelling and accuracy.

Early in Richard Linklater's Blue Moon, I thought of Amadeus. That 1984 film isn't about Mozart – it's about jealousy. Similarly, Blue Moon isn't a documentary about Broadway composer Richard Rogers (Andrew Scott) and lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke). It's a moving drama about Hawke's character dealing with professional and romantic failure. Don't expect it to be historically accurate.

Linklater and screenwriter Robert Kaplow set the movie as an extended scene in a bar called Sardi's on the opening night of Oklahoma! in 1943. The Broadway hit marked the end of the exclusive partnership of Rodgers and Hart when the former decided to form a new, genre-defining pairing with Oscar Hammerstein II.

The Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals (including Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music ) went on to become staples of the repertoire. They provided models for much of what came later. In contrast, the Rodgers and Hart collaboration is now remembered more for its songs, such as standards like My Funny Valentine and The Lady Is a Tramp, than for its musicals, including On Your Toes and Pal Joey.

Blue Moon shows us a portrait of Hart who can see that the parade has passed him by. He comments loudly on Hammerstein's clunky lyric writing while watching the title song of Oklahoma! in the theatre (the number itself rather feebly staged). When Rodgers arrives at Sardi's, Hart discloses his low opinion of the show.

The trailer for Blue Moon.

The alcoholism that would soon take his life is a key theme used to explain why Rodgers can't bear to write with him anymore. He has become unreliable. Meanwhile, a romantic crush inspired by 11 letters written to Hart from a Yale college student (a vulnerable Margaret Qualley) is used to explore Hart's sexual fluidity, though it's not clear that Hart ever met her in real life.

Hawke's elegiac performance is worth the price of admission alone. This is a truly stunning portrayal of someone whose illness makes them unable to evolve professionally when the culture around them changes. Both witty and deeply sad, it's an intense psychological tour de force, worthy of an Academy Award.

But that intensity is also tiring. Almost the entire movie shows Hart sitting in Sardi's, having discussions with the bartender (a wonderfully colourful performance from Bobby Cannavale), writer E.B. White (sensitively portrayed by Patrick Kennedy) and the pianist (Jonah Lees, hampered by having to mime a strangely pedestrian piano soundtrack of songbook classics). Although the screenplay is notionally conversational, Hart's inability to share a genuine exchange with anyone other than his crush means that much of the time it feels like being adrift in an 80-minute monologue.

That's where the movie is most striking and most problematic. You can't help but find Hawke's colossal speeches compelling, but it's so static that it feels more like the material for a play – possibly even a radio play – than a movie. The sustained focus also makes Linklater's awkward handling of Hart's diminutive stature (achieved through careful placing of the camera) distracting far too much of the time. It quite unnecessarily allows the fact that the real Hart was about 4ft 10in to hinder the presentation of Hawke's searing portrayal.

Throwing in other factual details also unhelpfully overwhelms common sense. The film recounts how Rodgers and Hart got together again a few months after Oklahoma! to write some new songs for a revival of their 1927 musical A Connecticut Yankee. Yet it shows Rodgers proposing the revival to Hart in the middle of their fraught exchange in the bar soon after the composer arrives for his opening night party – something that doesn't ring true and upsets the psychology of the scene.

Ethan Hawke discusses his role in Blue Moon.

Another implausible moment, when Hammerstein introduces his future protege Stephen Sondheim – then a child – to Hart as his“neighbour”, borders on the risible. Sondheim wasn't at the opening night of Oklahoma! and wasn't that close to Hammerstein at this point, and it's almost certain that the stagestruck child would not have been so rude when meeting a major lyricist (it was only later that he became openly critical of him). He was too much in love with the theatre and was only 13 years old.

It seems to me that these sorts of problems stem from the decision to set all the action on one night, rather than splitting it into two or three scenes in Hart's final months. Throwing in too many facts and then not paying attention to credibility undoes the research itself.

If we're here to learn about human truths that speak to a wider audience beyond theatre nerds, then why allow the reality of Hart's height to be the thing that dictates where the camera is most of the time? After all, Rodgers wasn't sleek and handsome in the way Scott embodies him, so why is Hart's height a constant focus? Or if the aim is to engage with historical truths, why portray Hart as snarky about Hammerstein's lyrics – and pompous about his own syntactic ability as a writer – when he was no more pedantic than his colleague?

As such, Blue Moon falls between two stools, the real and the imagined, without being quite sure which is the more important. Thankfully, and ironically, Hawke's performance rises above it.

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