Sweet and Lowdown

Sweet And Lowdown, is set in the 1930's and is about a jazz musician named Emmet Ray. Emmet, liked to spend his money, drink and often showed up late or drunk to jazz appearances. One day Emmet meets a mute woman named Hattie, who falls in love with him. The rest of the film shows Emmet's jazz career going up and down and his love for other women besides Hattie. Winner of The ALFS Award for British Supporting Actress Of The Year (Samantha Morton, who plays Hattie) at The London Critics Circle Film Awards. Sweet And Lowdown, has good direction, a good script, good performances from everybody involved, good original music, good cinematography, good film editing, good production design, good art direction, set decoration and good costume design. Sweet And Lowdown, is written and directed by Woody Allen, who is one of my favourite writers and directors but I was disappointed with this film. It wasn't a bad film and it was well acted and well made but there wasn't an awful lot to it. Not too much goes on in this movie and it doesn't really give the characters a chance to be as interesting as they could be. Also coming from Woody Allen, I didn't find the film funny at all. It also lacked his usual great dialog. Still the film is entertaining and I recommend it but it is not one of Woody Allen's best films.

Woody Allen has such control over the story telling tools of cinema that he can do whatever he wants. Mixing "documentary" comments about what is happening with the characters, and straightforward and yet superbly filmed feature sequences, Allen shows once again why he is one of the greatest film directors of our time. Good plot, great performances, skillfully constructed characters, excellent camera work... can you ask for more?

Sean Penn plays Emmett Ray, a little-known jazz guitarist, an eccentric, egocentric genius self-proclaimed as the "greatest guitar player in the country" or the "second greatest guitar player in the world" - because of that gypsy from France, the bane of his life, Django Reinhardt. The story of Sweet and Lowdown is the story of Emmett and the girl he first describes as "the little one with the silly hat," who is also, incidentally, called Hattie. There is something so special and memorable about the chemistry between Hattie and Emmett. Hattie is perfect for Emmett, because she's mute, and therefore he can sound off all day about how great he is, and she's the one person who won't contradict him.

Woody has the knack of making highly watchable movies - and popping them out one a year. There is a continuity across them all, yet they all seem somewhat unique. Sweet and Lowdown stands heads and shoulders above every other film Woody has made since Husbands and Wives. With Sweet and Lowdown, Woody reminds us why we loved him in the first place - yet i'm not sure i can think of another Woody film that's as genuine, beautiful and moving, yet eccentric and funny at the same time. Annie Hall was probably as touching, but with Woody is no actor next to Penn, which i think makes an incredible difference! Penn brings to life a character so eccentric and unbelievable, yet we never doubt him, we never feel he's not a total human being.

Penn's performance is counterbalanced by another equally moving performance by Samantha Morton as Hattie. Often you'll find yourself watching a two-shot with the both of them on screen, and you won't be able to decide which character you're more curious to watch. More often than not, you'll watch Samantha Morton, to see what Hattie is thinking and feeling. An extraordinary job by an extraordinarily talented actress you may have seen as the mother in In America or the pre-cog Agatha in Minority report.

The one fault in the film is Uma Thurman - she is badly miscast and clearly only suited to intentionally hammy fodder like Kill Bill. Her character, Blanche, is great ("Okay, so i slept with him, but i was just researching a book!"), which makes it more the shame that Thurman speaks her line like she thinks this is a cartoon or a Tarantino movie. The audience will only accept the eccentricity of this style if the performances are genuine: she gets an F. She pops the bubble of this movie. When she appears, we suddenly realise its only a movie, and the spell is broken. Nevertheless, she's only in a relatively small portion of the film, and she can't bring down the rest of it.

Sweet and Lowdown has the feeling of telling you a tale, and it spins some great fun yarns about little-known jazz guitarist Emmett Ray. Penn and Morton bring to life an incredible couple of characters - two of Woody's best creations. Well designed with nice period costumes and well directed, especially the magestic final crane shot (a reference to La Strada i believe). The story is beautifully punctuated with scintillating jazz music by Dick Hyman and others.

"Come listen," Emmett tells someone at one point, "you'll love this, i'm great."

A slow, rich movie. Though it lags in places, the three lead performances are indelibly written in my memory. And the great jazz soundtrack and warm colors made this movie go down like a glass of bourbon.

Embodying the archetypal difficult genius, Emmet Ray is an almost cartoonishly dislikable guy. But Sean Penn keeps him just this side of sympathetic; we loathe his actions, we curse his self-destructiveness, and yet we're compelled to keep watching in the increasingly futile hope he'll turn himself around. His last scenes are heartrending.

As Hattie, Samantha Morton strikes a perfect, almost Chaplinesque, balance of comedy and tragedy. The line separating the two is razor-thin; she dances gracefully upon it. I could say more, but perhaps appropriately, it's difficult to find words that capture the beauty of her silent performance. Half the joy is in watching her reactions naturally unfold anyway.

Like Penn, Uma Thurman portrays a pretty unlikeable character. Her Blanche is overly intellectual, questions incessantly and is in some ways just as emotionally alienated as Emmett. Though her character is grating at first (particularly in contrast to Morton), Thurman does not shrink from the less flattering aspects of her character. It's a brave performance in a thankless role.

Woody Allen has constructed a thoughtful meditation on the nature of artistry. Not on celebrity -- we all know how that film turned out -- but on the rights and responsibilities of the true artist. Emmett, Hattie and Blanche represent the axis of artists, fans and critics respectively. As their relationships play out -- naturally, inexorably and poignantly -- the viewer gets a rare treat: a film that plucks at the mind and at the heart as gracefully as Emmett picking his guitar strings.

Once again we get to see Sean Penn at his charming and reckless best. I thoroughly enjoyed watching him go into his self destructive mode, losing out on the things that are really important. One could start off thinking of him as an arrogant ass, but then come to realize that he is more insecure than almost anyone. His fear of the looming Django Renihart is pretty cool. Imagine being the second best and knowing it, that is, being so good but not quite there. How many people can tell you who the second man to walk on the moon was? The money comes and the money goes and the man goes on. The cinematography of this film is wonderful, capturing an era when the jazz performer was the king.