If it was just a move to show off his range, Sean Penn’s turn as jazz guitarist Emmet Ray in Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown would have been a resounding success, but of course reducing it to a simple career move would be cynical. At this point in his career, post-Dead Man Walking, Penn did not veer into comedic territory very often, which is a shame because in Sweet and Lowdown we see what incredible comedic effect a typically serious actor can have when they play an oddball character completely straight. It’s mesmerizing. So Penn’s role as the second greatest jazz guitar player of all time is a funny premise, but the fact that he makes everything about him mildly believable, right down to the trance he appears to go into when he’s making music, makes it a spectacular performance.
It’s hard to not talk about Samantha Morton in this movie because for pretty much every scene she’s in, we can’t take our eyes off of her. Much of this is because she doesn’t speak, and so every gesture is heightened and our attention is more focused. Silence has a way of doing that. But balancing this out is Penn’s logorrheic performance that is occasionally interrupted when he speaks with his guitar. If his Matthew Poncelet face was grave and mean, his Emmet Ray face is tense and energetic and eccentric. It’s hard to imagine that the same guy is playing both these parts.
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