Just perfect...

How sad is this?

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The Sweet and Lowdown will make you believe it is a story about actual people. The narrators and the stranger than fiction portraits of life give a realistic feel to it. It's a typical Woody Allen flick in its combination of humour and interesting story.The movie follows a dislikeable character, played by Sean Penn, who you love to see through out his many failures in life. The film has vibrant characters and that is arguably the best part of it.The only really bad thing I could say against this film is that it doesn't really have an ending. It just goes on until it ends at an arbitrary point. If this were an actual biopic you could understand it as just following history, but as it is it just seems odd. Though it could be said that it just sticks to style.Overall the Sweet and Lowdown is like a familiar meal that is filling while not exactly novel. It's a movie that will be more enjoyed by Woody Allen's fans because while it is funny the plot leaves one feeling empty and longing for more.

Emmett Ray is a man who can't see past the end of his nose. Were it not for his fingers which play jazz music beautiful enough to make angels weep he would probably be a bum living in an alley.Woody Allen's 1930s comedy 'Sweet and Lowdown' is a character study about a character whose music is sweet but whose personality is as pleasant as bad cheese. He is legendary as 'The Second Greatest Jazz Guitarist in the World'. However his idea of a date is to take a woman to the tracks to watch the trains or down to the garbage dump to shoot rats.He meets a mute woman named Hattie (Samantha Morton) who is just exactly the kind of woman he likes: mute and waiting on him and foot. Like most things in his life he doesn't know what a gift he has and can't forgive himself when he gives it up.Morton has the tougher role, she has to convince us that she really loves this worthless lug but has to do it without spoken word. Her face is sweet, expressive and we almost always know what she is thinking.Emmett has one pall over his life. He has a phobia about meeting Django Reinhart, legendary for being 'The Greatest Jazz Guitarist in the World'. Emmett does eventually run into Reinhart providing one of the movie's funniest moments.Emmett would be almost impossible to take in this film were he not played by Sean Penn. Penn is a brilliant actor who knows how to disappear into a role and make us care about the character. Here he has the tough task of making us care about someone who is a complete jerk. He makes Emmett Ray into a lovable guy even when we know we aren't suppose to like him.That is also based on the strength of Woody Allen's writing. He has written a fiction chapter of jazz history about a man out of touch with everything but his music.

I had to watch this because of Sean Penn. Sean Penn plays a egotist narcissistic guitar player. Sean Penn is extremely charming in his own quirky way and is definitely the main reason why you should watch the movie. The movie holds out and comes out good only because of him.The Writing is good something we can always expect from Woody Allen.But overall it is a one man show and that is Sean Penn. He has totally immersed himself into the character of Emmet Ray. Top Notch Performance. I don't think any other actor could have made this movie more watchable than Penn has. A must watch for Penn fans like me.8\10

Sweet, gentle, sad, with amazing performances by Sean Penn and Samantha Morton. Interestingly, this got mixed reviews on release for being 'small' in scope, but to me that's its great strength. As screwed up as the Sean Penn character is, we still get pulled into him, and it makes for a lovely portrait of a sad, lost, brilliant jazz guitarist. Penn and Allen conspire to create one of the most simultaneously infuriating and oddly ingratiating characters of recent memoryNo big conclusions or statements, just a subtle, brilliantly acted comic and tragic study of humanity. That's enough make this the strongest Woody Allen film for a number of years.