Sweet and Lowdown

Woody Allen immerses himself in the world of vintage jazz in this period mock-biography of a musician gifted in his art but a sad student in life. Emmet Ray (Sean Penn) is a 1930s jazz guitarist considered one of the finest musicians ever to touch a fretboard, second only to the legendary Django ...more

The product of Woody Allen's lifelong love of jazz, Sweet and Lowdown is as much a continued exploration of the relationship between an artist's private life and his or her professional career -- foregrounded elsewhere in Deconstructing Harry and Celebrity -- as about the music itself. And it doesn't benefit all that much from the extra baggage. The period detail, Sean Penn's tragi-comic characterization, Allen's wickedly funny employment of jazz biography cliches and, of course, fine music all ...more