John Powers

Along with composer Richard Rogers, Hart wrote over two dozen musicals and turned out hundreds of songs, many of them still standards.

Isn't it romantic?

My Funny Valentine?

Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered?

And yes, Blue Moon.

For all the acclaim, however, Hart was painfully insecure, a raw nerve-end of a man.

Closeted and Jewish, he was five feet tall, thought himself unattractive, and had erratic, alcohol-drenched work habits that eventually sank his partnership with Rogers.

It's this damaged Hart, 47 years old and only months from death, whose soul is laid grippingly bare in Linklater's film.

The action is set over a few hours of March 31, 1943, the night of the Broadway premiere of Oklahoma, Rogers' first musical with his new writing partner, Oscar Hammerstein II.

Hart walks out in the middle.

He hates the show for being sentimental and rife with bogus Americana.

He even hates the exclamation point after Oklahoma.

But he also knows it's going to be epical, bigger than anything he and Rogers ever did.

And so, putting on a brave face beneath his unfortunate comb-over, Larry, as everyone calls him, goes to Sardi's Restaurant, where Oklahoma will have its after-party.

He intends to nobly congratulate Rogers, the partner who jilted him, but also to meet up with his protege, Elizabeth Weiland, a 20-year-old Yale drama student played by Margaret Qualley, with whom he dreams of sharing a grand love.

As Larry waits, he starts getting sozzled, tossing off urbane, opinionated, baroquely droll patter to the bartender.

That's a rye Bobby Cannavale.

and to a sympathetic fellow drinker, New Yorker writer E.B.

White, played by Patrick Kennedy.

While Larry can be a buoyant delight, you can sense he'd be a nightmare to work with.