Ethan Hawke will break your heart in "Blue Moon," director Richard Linklater's lyrical ode to Lorenz Hart, the famed lyricist and one-half of the Broadway songwriting duo Rodgers and Hart, the team behind standards such as "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered," "The Lady is a Tramp," and "Manhattan."

Hawke plays Hart as a loquacious, sad sack romantic, drunk on the patter of his own speech when he's not just plain drunk. (He's on the wagon and off again several times during the course of the movie, which unfolds in one location, during one night.)

Hart bellies up to the bar at Sardi's, the historic Broadway gathering spot, where he chats it up with the bartender (a charming Bobby Cannavale) and the piano player (Jonah Lees), spitting rapid-fire bon mots about language, booze and his own sex life, or lack thereof. (He refers to himself as ambisexual.)

It's not just any night, it's the opening night of "Oklahoma!", the soon-to-be-smash, written by Hart's former creative partner Richard Rodgers with his new musical partner, Oscar Hammerstein II. Hart oscillates between panning and applauding the new work, mostly as an expression of his own jealousy and self-hatred, and his own dwindling career prospects.

Soon the "Oklahoma!" afterparty spills into the lobby of the bar, and Hart is effusive in his praise of Rodgers (Andrew Scott). Rodgers has a soft spot for his former partner but is hesitant to go down old roads with him, and talk of a new collaboration is partially sincere, partially laced with pity, as raves of the new play are coming in one by one over the telephone.

Hart's compliments toward Hammerstein (Simon Delaney) are laced with viciousness; in his heart he knows "Oklahoma!" is basic and somewhat pandering, but also that it's going to be an enormous, gigantic, all-conquering hit, and it's going to help shape Broadway for the next 50 years.

Margaret Qualley plays Elizabeth Weiland, a budding ingenue with whom Hart is in love. She loves him, too, just not in that way, the news of which cuts Hart like a dagger, even if deep down, he knew it already.

Hawke — who's given a ratty combover and is shot to look about a foot shorter than he is — plays Hart as a brilliant but bitter dreamer, so naked and vulnerable in his feelings that he's an open target for everyone, especially himself. His performance is a wonderful complement to his work in "Born to Be Blue," in which his character, Chet Baker, memorably performed "My Funny Valentine," one of Hart's signature works.

For Linklater, making his ninth film with Hawke, "Blue Moon" feels — both in period and tone — like a companion piece to "Me and Orson Welles"; that 2008 film was based on a novel written by Robert Kaplow, who wrote the screenplay here. It feels like a Broadway play in a way that is complementary, where that kind of comparison can often be stifling for a film.

"Blue Moon" does that thing that movies like this often do, where an offhand comment is meant to be a wink to the audience — Hart has a conversation about a mouse named Stuart with E.B. White (Patrick Kennedy), who would go on to write "Stuart Little"; Hart tells George Hill (David Rawle) to focus on stories about friendship, and Hill would go on to make "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" — which is sometimes a little too cute for its own good.

But there's so much rage, bitterness and regret stirring just below the surface of Hawke's raw performance that it makes "Blue Moon" feel much bigger than it is. It's a minor film that packs a major emotional punch.

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'Blue Moon'

GRADE: B+

Rated R: for language and sexual references

Running time: 100 minutes

In theaters

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