Sweet and Lowdown
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Movie Reviews of Sweet and Lowdown
Movie Review: A Different Kind of Woody Allen Movie
Summary: 4 Stars
When Woody Allen strays from what he is best at--comedy--he often slips. He's really hit the bull's eye with this movie, though, a comedy drama about jazz guitarist Emmet Ray, the "best guitarist in the world...except for this gypsy in France," as Ray tells people throughout the movie.Sean Penn plays Ray, and gives a perfectly pitched performance. Ray is a creep. He pimps, womanizes, drinks, gambles. Penn manages to convey a certain vulnerability to the character, though, so that even as we abhor his behavior, we pity him.
Samantha Morton plays his mute girlfriend. What she is able to convey through facial expressions...well, she should have won the Oscar. Her performance is, at times, heartwrenching...and without being maudlin.
Ray's story is pieced together from anecdotes that have been handed down over the years--legends, and even if they don't make for authoritative biography, they make for an awfully good movie. Even viewers who have never been big Woody Allen fans can enjoy this one--there is none of that manic, stuttering, neurotic slapstick that characterizes mainstream WA comedy.
Defintely worth a look.
Movie Review: One of Allen's finest 'little pictures'
Summary: 4 Stars
Woody's kept up a one-film-per-year pace for four decades, so they can't be all winners. His output, therefore, tends to fall into the major works (films like Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters, and Crimes and Misdemeanors, many of which have novelistic plots) and the minor ones (which tend to be more like short stories). Some of the minor films, like the recent Scoop, are so perfect in their own right, I'd rank them among his best work. Some of these movies, made one after the other, also tend to fulfill thematic arcs in Allen's career. In Deconstructing Harry, for instance, a writer who is a failed human being redeems himself through art. Shortly after that film, Allen made Sweet and Lowdown, about a musician who is a failed human being who redeems himself through his art. The film is one of those great minor works by Allen, even echoing the theme of Manhattan of a selfish man who realises the love of his life, but too late. (You snooze, you lose.) This film's greatness, though, is its loving attention to its jazz-age milieu (I love the house party sequences), and the performance of Sean Penn, easily his greatest not to be honoured with an Oscar.Movie Review: Sweet... Yes, Kind Of...
Summary: 4 Stars
As a Woody Allen fan, it's very hard for me to say anything about this movie.Because on one hand, it does not come up to his expected level as a movie in a whole (although »Celebrity« was not a favourite of mine either - maybe his movies are just better when he starrs in them himself).
But on the other hand, there is something about it. Something new, I dunno... I'm still chewing on that one... Days after I've watched the movie...
It might be the characters that are extremely funny. Nearly like in Woody Allen's BOOKS!
Not only are they well-played (Sean Penn is kinda self-ironic, overacting to a perfectly balanced extent! Brilliant!!), they are also composed of a lot of witty and simple characteristics that they become geniusly complex. For good and for worse. One thing is sure, though: For once there are no particularly clever and/or intellectual characters in a Woody Allen movie!
So, basicly it's not the STORY but the witty details of the CHARACTERS which carry »Sweet And Lowdown« through. And makes it a very funny movie, all in all!
Movie Review: Hats Off To 'Hattie!'
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a strange movie, but one made a little bit special to me because of one memorable character: "Hattie," played by Samantha Morton. What a wonderful, endearing character! The sweet look on her face alone makes this movie worth keeping.
Another huge positive for this film is the cinematography. This is beautifully shot with great colors which look all the better on DVD.
As mentioned by other reviewers, Sean Penn also does an excellent job in the lead. The shocker for me was how good a comedic touch he exhibits. Putting his general persona or politics aside, this man deserves kudos as an actor.
There is a third very different and interesting character in this movie: "Blanche," played by Uma Thurman, who portrays an amoral woman in the last part of the film. She, too, is fascinating.
So....three interesting characters, great photography AND terrific music - jazz guitar is a central part of this story - all make for a fun hour-and-a-half of entertainment.
Movie Review: Woody back to basics.
Summary: 4 Stars
It's such a shame that Woody Allen's films just aren't opened to the large audiences anymore. Sweet and Lowdown, Allen's latest comedic invention, is a film that seems to go back to style of comedic farce and character study that Woody took on in his first major films. At times a mock documentary in the vein of "Take the Money and Run" and "Zelig", Sweet and Lowdown is a more mature film that has a lot more notes to it than the early movies. This film also features something that no other Allen film has had - a truly transformative performance from an actor. Sean Penn and Allen paint such a quircky and complex character that I actually left the theatre thinking Emmitt Ray must have been a real person. Surely no filmakers and actor could come up with such a figure. But alas they did and this is the magic of this film which also features great supporting work and good music to boot.