Sweet and Lowdown

Dir: Woody Allen

1999

*****

Sweet and Lowdown might just be my favourite Woody Allen film. I think what I really like about it is how un-Woody Allen it is. It tells the (unfortunately) fictional tale of Emmet Ray (played by Sean Penn), a jazz guitarist who achieved some acclaim in the 1930s with a handful of recordings for RCA Victor, but who faded from public view under mysterious circumstances. Though a talented musician, Ray's personal life is a mess. He’s a drunk, a spendthrift, a womanizer and a pimp who believes that falling in love will ruin his musical career. Due to his heavy drinking, he's often late or even absent for performances. After music, his favorite hobby is shooting rats at garbage dumps. One night while on a double date with his drummer, Ray meets Hattie (played by Samantha Morton), an incredibly shy and mute laundress. After overcoming some initial frustration due to the difficulties of communication, Ray and Hattie form an affectionate and close relationship – perfect for him as someone who loves to talk and be listened to. She accompanies him on a cross-country trip to Hollywood where he plays in a short film; Hattie is suddenly spotted by a director and enjoys a brief screen career herself. However Ray is convinced that a musician of his stature should never settle down with one woman and on a whim, he marries socialite Blanche Williams (played by Uma Thurman). However, Blanche sees Ray mainly as a colorful example of lower-class life and a source of inspiration for her literary writings. She reports that Ray is tormented by nightmares and shouts out Hattie's name in his sleep. When Blanche cheats with mobster Al Torrio (the brilliant Anthony LaPaglia), Ray leaves her and locates Hattie. He assumes that she will take him back, but discovers that she is happily married and raising a family. Afterwards, on a date with a new woman, a despondent Ray plays a melody that Hattie adored and then smashes his guitar and forlornly repeats the phrase "I made a mistake!" He angrily smashes his guitar to pieces as his date leaves him. Never has a film had such a fitting title. Sean Penn is brilliant and out of all of his amazing performances I think this is my favorite. I also fell in love with Samantha Morton in this film – she’s never made a bad film and is always impeccable but here she is something special. Weirdly her performance is based on Harpo Marx, which I kind of get. I generally don’t like Allen’s signature move of interrupting a film with interviews and talking heads from critics and biographers but it kind of worked here. It did make me think it was a true story at first though, so it was a great disappointment to release it was fiction (I searched for hours to try and find some Emmet Ray recordings). Allen actually wrote the bulk of the script back in 1969 after he directed his debut Take the Money and Run. Back then it was called The Jazz baby. He took the idea to United Artists who he had a ‘write whatever you want to write’ contract with. They basically answered with a stern ‘write whatever you want to write except this’. United wanted comedy from Allen, so he wrote Bananas and The Jazz Baby sat on the shelf for a couple of decades until 1995. Allen made a few rewrites and played homage to Federico Fellini’s La Strada, having the characters of Emmet and Hattie correspond to Zampano and Gelsomina, particularly in the film’s final scene. I’m so glad Johnny Depp - who was first offered the main role – dropped out fairly early on due to scheduling conflicts. It’s a great film, think what you will of Allen (I don’t think much of him at all) this is one of his best. Sweet and Lowdown indeed.