Review

Portrait of the artist as a young jerk

In Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown, Depression-era jazz guitarist Emmet Ray (Sean Penn) is an incorrigible poster boy for conceited talent. He’s a jazz musician but the film is the story of how he discovers the blues.

Emmet also plays horn, as in “tooting his own.” “I was amazing the minute I picked up the instrument” and “You’ll enjoy this — I’m great,” are among his most commonly uttered phrases.

The only force that can humble this arrogant man is the existence of Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt “over in France.” Emmet’s visceral fear of meeting his idol and presumed rival for crown of greatest jazz guitarist on earth sets the stage for one of the film’s funniest gags — a bout with wish fulfillment via incredibly unlikely means.

Emmet adores the company of women but keeps declaring that he doesn’t “need” them because he’s an artist and love would only hold him back. Profligate, boorish and absolutely convinced the world revolves around his own frequently late or no-show navel, Emmet Ray is nevertheless as gifted a performer as he claims to be. Allen gently toys with the fact that extraordinary talent can cohabit with a shallow, selfish, fundamentally inconsiderate approach to life.

“Not only are you vain and egotistical, but you have genuine crudeness!” exclaims Blanche Williams (Uma Thurman) with unfeigned delight. A former debutante slumming to gather “experience” for her writing, Blanche keeps trying to pinpoint the intellectual underpinnings of Ray’s unquestionable genius. She’ll have to look a long time: There aren’t any.

“You don’t have to be bright — music’s for everyone, smart or dumb,” Emmet announces the day he meets Hattie (Samantha Morton), a mute laundress who’s cute as a button and about as intelligent. She can’t talk, which leaves Emmet infinite leeway to boast about his prowess in any and all departments. He has the love of a good woman but lacks the common sense to pick up on a good thing with anywhere near the skill with which he picks his guitar. So slick he could beat an oil spill for collateral damage, Ray nonetheless rewrites his own bohemian rhapsody as a tragedy.

Recounted in part as a faux-documentary with “talking head” testimony from genuine music authorities and Allen himself, Sweet and Lowdown is a Woody Allen movie that even people who don’t like Woody Allen movies can enjoy.

The music in Sweet and Lowdown is absolutely terrific, doing for pure instrumental bravado what South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut does for brilliantly irreverent lyrics.

Penn has resisted the strong pull to exhibit the performance tics that inevitably rub off on other seasoned performers when they step into the roles Allen himself would play if only he were 30 years younger (cf. John Cusack in Bullets Over Broadway, Kenneth Branaugh in Celebrity). Penn has the acting chops to make a basically repugnant character intriguing instead of repulsive. We understand why sweet-spirited Hattie might just be drawn to him, Hope Diamond-sized flaws and all.

FilmFestivals.com reporter
Lisa Nesselson