Allen hits right notes in 'Sweet' styled film

By Laura Flyer

Daily Arts Writer

In one of his more quaint and charming films, Woody Allen has finally decided to incorporate his cherished love for music into a drama with a little-known jazz guitarist as its focus. "Sweet and Lowdown" is narrated in documentary-style but its lead role, Emmett Ray (Sean Penn), is a fictional character. With a more relaxed pace and contemplative feel than Allen's only other film in this mode, "Zelig," "Sweet and Lowdown" combines a rich story with the sensuous sounds of the famous jazz guitarist, Django Reinhardt (played in the film by Michael Sprague).

The story begins in a jazz club with a familiar middle-upper class setting of aficionados in a local town during the '20s and '30s. When Emmett is playing the guitar, his eyes are closed and his lips and head move slightly to the rhythms of his strumming. These deeply expressionistic looks contrast his own personality and allure women who think his soul is filled with attractive turbulence and emotion.

In truth, Emmett lacks the courage to express himself and feel emotion, and treats his women with remote indifference. Some fall in love with him, but each time they do, he says that he had warned them not to get attached to him, because he's "not the marrying kind of guy."

A mute laundress named Hattie (Samantha Morton) changes this conviction of his, though he would never admit it. Hattie is a simple girl, awkward at times, but with a pretty face. Though her character never says a word, Morton gives an incredibly poignant performance as she facially expresses how she feels according to her moods. Emmett treats her with little respect which ignites these emotional shifts, but she appreciates his quirkiness and love for the guitar.

Finding Hattie unsatisfying, Ray eventually moves on to the seductive, fashionable Blanche (Uma Thurman). Undeniably deluded in her perception of people, Blanche is convinced that everyone is motivated by some lofty poetic conviction. For example, as Ray engages in one of his favorite hobbies of watching trains pass by, Blanche ponders over the implications of his interest in the locomotive and how it could be related to the rhythms and beats of his guitar songs.

Yet she is not entirely impervious to reality. She can see how Ray's stubbornness towards falling in love impedes a chance to impart emotional beauty into his music and become a more accomplished guitarist than he already is.

Emmett doesn't seem to fear much, except for one person: Django Reinhardt, whom he has met twice and both times is unable to speak a word and merely collapses to the ground.

Courtesy of Miramax

Sean Penn strums away as fictious jazz guitarist Emmett Ray in "Sweet and Lowdown."