Sweet and Lowdown (Woody Allen, 1999)

Woody Allen was in a playful mood with this one (course, even Allen’s playful side can’t help riffing on old Federico Fellini storylines). Sweet and Lowdown is Allen’s unique brand of biopic, a peculiar story about the 1930’s greatest jazz guitarist, Emmett Ray. Well, second greatest, after this gypsy named Django Reinhardt whose songs make Emmett weep and whose presence makes him faint. So why is it so unique? The thing is, it’s all show. Yep, a fake. A spoof of the biopic form. The storyline and characters are concoctions from the mind of Woody Allen… and Sweet and Lowdown is all the better for it, avoiding many of the inherent plot potholes found in most ‘genuine’ (and genuinely dull) biopics. Allen himself appears in two forms, 1) as a talking heads “expert” on Emmett Ray who’s being interviewed for the film and 2) through Sean Penn’s idiosyncratic character, complete with Allen’s conceptual foibles like Emmett’s penchant for staring at trains for hours on end and going to the dump to shoot rats. As played by Sean Penn in an Oscar-nominated performance, Emmett Ray is a glorious bastard. A pimp and an egotist, not only is Penn’s Emmett one of the best guitar players in the world, he’s also, probably self-considered, “one of the top 5 or 6 poker players in the world” and “a great lover” amongst other virtues. Apparently those virtues don’t prevent him from hustling county talent shows, leaving his girlfriends behind in the middle of the night and for some reason his immeasurable talent always seems to leave him a year away from real fame or fortune. It’s Penn’s stalwart performance that makes the film work at first (Penn hasn’t been this funny since Spicoli roamed the hallways). But the heart of this story, where it really comes to life, is with Samantha Morton’s mute Hattie. She’s the only character that seems able to crack the hard veneer of Emmett’s defenses, one that has kept him from ever getting emotionally invested in a woman before. And that Morton is able to show this all without uttering a single word is remarkable, and entirely deserving of her own, rightfully earned, nomination for Best Supporting Actress.