Sweet and Lowdown

Sweet and Lowdown is set in America during the 1930s and follows Emmet Ray, a jazz guitarist who considers himself the finest player alive apart from Django Reinhardt, the man he openly idolizes. Emmet's talent on the strings is matched only by his appetite for drink, gambling, women and reckless behaviour, which repeatedly derails his career and his relationships with club owners. Gangsters cross his path, and he drifts from town to town in a fog of his own making. His life changes when he meets Hattie, a mute young woman who becomes his companion and seems to steady him, though his reluctance to commit threatens whatever they build together. The story is told with the framing of a documentary about a half-remembered musician, and its ending leaves Emmet's fate uncertain.

Woody Allen directed and wrote the film, the twenty-seventh of the forty-eight he has directed in chronological order. It follows Celebrity (1998) and precedes Small Time Crooks (2000). Sean Penn plays Emmet, with Samantha Morton as Hattie, Anthony LaPaglia as Al Torrio, Uma Thurman as the writer Blanche Williams, James Urbaniak and John Waters in supporting roles. The production, made for about 30 million dollars, returned roughly 5 million worldwide at the box office.

On IMDb the film holds a 7.2 rating from around 38,000 votes, while on TMDB it has a 6.8 from a much smaller pool of voters. A critics' rating of 7.1 from 60 reviews places it close to the audience score on IMDb.