Sweet and Lowdown poster & wallpaper

Anthony LaPaglia, John Waters, Samantha Morton

Emmet Ray, according to himself, was the greatest jazz guitarist of the 1920s and 1930s. At least in New York, anyway. Although Ray certainly had a signature style and a melodic skill, those who knew...( read more  read more... ) Ray best admit that perhaps he was best known in his extra-musical roles -- as a pimp and a kleptomaniac whose fatal flaws hung over his career like a black cloud.

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77% liked it

9,222 ratings

Critics

78% liked it

59 critics

PG-13, 1 hr. 33 min.

Directed by: Woody Allen

Release Date: December 3, 1999

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DVD Release Date: June 20, 2000

Stats: 474 reviews

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Sweet and Lowdown Sweet & Lowdown Samantha Morton & Sean Penn Sean Penn in Sweet and Lowdown Samantha Morton in Sweet and Lowdown Sean Penn in Sweet and Lowdown Sweet and Lowdown
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Flixster Reviews (474)

  • SirPant
    September 29, 2009
    SirPant
    My favourite Woody Allen film. Penn is top of his game and I fell in love with Samantha Morton in this movie. Uma Thurman is not annoying either which is nice.
  • mwilliams078
    March 22, 2009
    mwilliams078
    Sweet and Lowdown is another gem from Woody Allen. Sean Penn and Uma Thurman star in this comedy about a famous jazz musician and his crazy marital and professional life. Sean Penn is very good in this movie.
  • irisheyes686
    March 14, 2009
    irisheyes686
    Weird movie...I didn't really like the documentary type stuff. It was pretty funny though at times.
  • dooritor1
    February 25, 2009
    dooritor1
    "wanna go shoot some rats!?!?" the immortal words of an unforgettable character. hes hilarious, pathetic, and yet charming in his naivety. such a great movie.
  • FangsFirst
    June 1, 2008
    FangsFirst
    I often suggest that Sony Pictures Classics does few if any wrongs, having been disappointed by none of the movies I've bought with their label on them. This isn't strictly true. There is one mistake I'm still miffed about, and this is it. Or, was it. What, the film? Oh, no. The ...( read more)fact that later editions of the DVD omit the original aspect ratio in favour of a re-formatted fullscreen, pan-and-scan transfer. I recently found a copy of the hard-to-find widescreen original release and put it in quickly to make sure this lone copy I could find was not damaged. I recall enjoying the film the first time around, and wondering that same question we all seem to have watching this--is it a dramatization of a real life or completely made up?

    Emmet Ray (Sean Penn) is the best guitarist in the world--well, except for a Gypsy in France (Django Reinhardt of course, played in his passing moment by Michael Sprague), and is the subject of this Woody Allen film (writing and directing, as per most of them, but not starring). He and various other people who are--many, if not all, real--jazz and musical historians and the like. We are toured through an episodic view of Ray's life, theoretically based on scant information on his existence, various stories of his meetings with Reinhardt (inevitably leading to Ray fainting), and some of his experiences with women. He begins as a pimp with grand ideas of himself--planning a fancy stage entrance and taking money from the prostitutes he employs while being taken for great amounts of money at pool* during the Depression. While he and drummer Bill Shields (Brian Markinson) are on a day off attempting to pick up women, they unwittingly stumble across a statuesque redhead paired with a quiet smaller woman. Ray ends up with the smaller woman--Hattie (Samantha Morton)--only to discover she is a mute. The two bond quickly, but Ray's ways leave him skipping out on Hattie quickly to seek his fame and fortune, marrying the next pretty woman he runs across, Blanche (Uma Thurman).

    Allen's style is so often inextricably linked with his starring roles--and his own peculiar mannerisms and speech patterns that the skill he has at writing and directing is occasionally lost in the characterization of his films as simply the personality he portrays himself as having in his films. Here, though, we have Penn playing one of his lighter roles--also in contrast to his actual personality as understood by the public, which is either ragingly political, or just raging. He's a bit of a goof as Ray, but intentionally so. Ray is a comedic figure, there's no doubt about this, having an ego greater than his talent at the guitar, which is certainly something in and of itself. Despite this he manages to be endearing--even when he's a blunt jerk to everyone, especially the endlessly sweet Hattie. When a woman tells him he bottles his feelings up, he refuses to admit it, and we haven't seen nearly as much of it as we soon will--his reaction to Hattie is mortal fear of commitment and showing his feelings for her. He says crude and insulting things to her--not directly, but in the implicit omissions of other statements he makes, but perhaps it's because we can see a sweet magnetism between the two of them, because even Hattie seems to get it, even when it bothers or hurts her, that Emmet means nothing by it, and sincerely likes her. Of course, this is of some appeal to me as a quiet romantic, and the conflicting external appearance appeals in some fashion to my sense of humour.

    Uma Thurman as always seems both wooden and overacting. Like her role in Pulp Fiction, though, it seems appropriate. Blanche is a pretty superficial woman, interested in and turned on by the stories and lives of others and having little of her own, thinking of herself as a writer (and speaking as one, too). But Penn and Morton are thankfully more central, and this makes Morton even more compelling and pleasing when seen in comparison to Blanche. The best conceit, though, is the way it's treated like a documentary, with all of the interviews interspersed between the dramatization, and by people who are absolutely fantastic as storytellers and as seeming like they are recalling these things from memory. Allen's character that we know so well is what is used here and it is fantastic for the act of storytelling, and listening to him tell the stories of a character he made up are completely delightful. The choice to insert the multiple dramatizations of an incident at a gas station in complete violation of the usual approach to documentaries--at least the dramatization of the different sets of events--and to manage to do so in such a way that does not break the flow of perceived realism is brilliant.

    It's a great little movie and in no way lets down my opinion of Sony Pictures Classics. I am a fan of Allens' more well-known and characteristic films, but this one is even better without him controlling the proceedings from inside as well as out. The characters are fun and ridiculous--especially Ray's self-justifications and interpersonal philosophizing that do not bear close scrutiny nor their own weight, making it possible for us to easily see the truth when Ray appears again in front of Hattie and says of course he's "not saying [he] miss[es her], either..."

    *By Chris Bauer, who had a large role in the second season of The Wire, as well as the excellent performance he placed in Brad Anderson's Masters of Horror episode "Sounds Like."
  • Epicouros
    September 29, 2009
    Epicouros
    about love of Woody in Jazz
  • Phonex
    September 29, 2009
    Phonex
    A part of life of fictional jazz guitarist Emmett Ray according to W.A.
  • ElCochran90
    September 18, 2009
    ElCochran90
    Woody, faithful to his unique style, directs an ironic and unbelievable little story. Liked it.

    60/100
  • makkom
    September 5, 2009
    makkom
    jazz guitar + a man.
    pretty cool.

    Samantha Morton is really cute.
  • SageSlowdive
    August 17, 2009
    SageSlowdive
    Woody Allen has never made a good movie.

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Critic Reviews

March 22, 2002
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail

A shallow portrait of the artist as a cad. full review

January 1, 2000
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Emmet Ray is a fictional character, but so convincing in Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown that he seems like a real chapter of jazz history we somehow overlooked. full review

January 1, 2000
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com

Sweet and Lowdown is undeniably pleasant, but British actress Samantha Morton quietly explodes it: Her performance is like nothing I've seen in recent years. full review

View more Sweet and Lowdown reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

Comments

  • danielra47
    June 29, 2007
    danielra47
    I really loved Samantha Morton, such a sweet character.
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Sweet and Lowdown Trivia

  • In Sweet and Lowdown, Sean Penn plays a jazz ______.  Answer »
  • In Woody Allen's 'Sweet and Lowdown' the character Emmet Ray was the greatest guitarist second to whom?  Answer »
  • In the Woody Allen film Sweet And Lowdown, Sean Penn's character played what intrument?  Answer »
  • What do the films 'Chocolat' and 'Sweet and Lowdown' have in common?  Answer »
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