Review of Sweet and Lowdown (1999) by Charlie M — 23 Feb 2015

Like Zelig before, Woody creates a fictional character, but treats his life's story like a documentary by adding expert interviews to bookend each act. He could have just promoted the greatness of an old jazz player, but instead Emmet is a completely despicable person. He is a boorish, selfish fool that exists as pure id, stealing an ashtray one minute and then casually discarding it the next. Like Inside Llewyn Davis the message is about the luck and ego of genius. We hold creative minds in high regard but even brilliant people can be awful; Love the art, not the artist. Which is what women do. The main throughline of this story is Emmet's romance with a mute girl named Hattie. She can hear the beauty of his guitar, and is too simple to realize how much of an ass he is. She's right for him of course, because both have the emotional maturity of a 12 year old. But as soon as she's good to him, he disappears.

Sean Penn is cartoonish but still superb as Emmett, showing the full range of emotions in this gifted man-child. That being said, it's very difficult to watch a swarthy jerk who is so putrid of a human being knowing that he'll never be redeemed or punished. Woody's nihilism tends to make unlikable people even more unforgivable and in the 3rd act he tells 3 differing versions of an ending to simply make the point how irrelevant an ending is to the story by saying "at least we have the music." Great acting, and well made, and one of the most beautiful soundtracks I've ever heard. Still...a feel-bad movie.