Sweet and Lowdown Review
by Scott Renshaw (renshaw AT inconnect DOT com)March 3rd, 2000
SWEET AND LOWDOWN
(Sony Classics)
Starring: Sean Penn, Samantha Morton, Uma Thurman, Anthony LaPaglia. Screenplay: Woody Allen.
Producer: Jean Doumanian.
Director: Woody Allen.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (adult themes, drug use, profanity)
Running Time: 95 minutes.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
I don't think any American filmmaker in my lifetime has had his personal life as closely associated with his films as Woody Allen. For 25 years, his leading ladies on screen -- Louise Lasser, Diane Keaton, Mia Farrow -- were his leading ladies off screen. When HUSBANDS AND WIVES -- his last film with Farrow before their break-up became a tabloid staple -- came out in 1992, critics observed it in terms of the disintegration of their real-life relationship. DECONSTRUCTING HARRY was seen as a justification for someone to live as a complete jerk provided he also created great art (and got younger women in the process). The compulsively auto-analytical Allen created a classic film persona, but he also created a monster: a body of work constantly being read for clues about its creator.
SWEET AND LOWDOWN is framed as the documentary biography of a great but little-known (read: fictional) jazz guitarist of the 1930s named Emmet Ray (Sean Penn). Widely regarded by scholars as second only to the legendary Django Reinhardt among jazz guitarists, Emmet also has a few minor personal quirks. He's a womanizer. He's a kleptomaniac. He's an alcoholic. He's a part-time pimp. He's an egomaniac. And he spends every dollar in his pocket before he actually has it in his pocket. But he's a player whose artistry causes women to swoon and club owners to forgive his chronic unreliability.
At first, it may sound like another apologia for the artist as world-class clod, a la DECONSTRUCTING HARRY, but there's actually something more going on in the character of Emmet Ray. As played by Penn, Emmet has bought into the clich of the artist as self-destructive free spirit. He proudly announces to his various women his need to "be free;" he wears the fanciest clothes to support his image; he shoots junkyard rats for entertainment. When he tells every listener that he's the greatest guitar player there is -- "except for this gypsy" -- he's desperately trying to defend his life. If he's not the best there is at his art, he may not be able to justify his self-imposed isolation from emotional connection.
I'm coming to believe that Sean Penn may be the most talented American actor alive. His ability to take characters like Emmet Ray and DEAD MAN WALKING's Matthew Poncelet and give them a sympathetic soul without softening them is an extraordinary gift. Penn does so many things right as Emmet that it suddenly becomes evident that Allen doesn't quite know how to handle it when an actor can make his script seem irrelevant. The light-hearted structure, with jazz scholars commenting talking-head style on Emmet's misadventures, becomes jarring and distracting as Emmet's story unfolds. Episodes like Emmet's attempt to con an amateur talent contest or his role in a botched hold-up (told in three possible variations) feel like forced attempts at giving the film a Woody Allen sensibility. Only when Allen holds Penn unexpectedly in the dead center of a reaction shot -- a crucial exchange with another character where you'd usually expect a cutaway -- does it appear the director understands what he has working for him.
Samantha Morton has also received plenty of praise for her role as a mute laundress with whom Emmet has a lengthy relationship, and it's certainly an impressive physical performance. It's also clear how much Morton is contributing to the story when she leaves the story, only to be replaced as primary romantic interest by the gratingly mannered Uma Thurman. But this is a jazz odyssey that works thanks to a stunning lead performance of a fascinating character, in spite of a structure always on the verge of sabotaging that character. You might suspect that the notoriously private Allen was using SWEET AND LOWDOWN as a first attempt to really open himself up emotionally on screen, but found it so awkward that he had to keep telling jokes. Or maybe he's just an imperfect filmmaker who cast a great actor in an imperfect film.
Naaaaahhhh ...
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 jazz oddities: 6.
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