Sweet and Lowdown - Movie Review

One never knows whether Emmet Ray existed as long as one watches the movie. People, including Woody Allen, come up in between and talk to the camera about what happened to Emmet Ray's life as if they knew him intimately (Emmet Ray is supposedly the guitarist who considered himself the second best guitarist in the world in the 1930s.) The movie is about this guy who could play the guitar brilliantly but who has a drinking problem and a confidence and attitude problem too. That's okay but where we get interested in Emmet is in his relationships with women. Or so we think.
 

You see Emmet thinks he cannot fall in love because his musical genius might get affected. But he seems to fall in love with a dumb girl he meets and they form an unusual relationship - Emmet's chief interests in life apart from playing the guitar are playing pool, drinking, shooting rats at garbage dumps and watching trains. Enough to drive normal girls crazy. But Hattie, the dumb girl, stays by, quite content in this life. However Emmet leaves her for a socialite Blanche, finds out about her affair, and realises that he has made a mistake by leaving Hattie. He smashes his beloved guitar in his anguish (a familiar scene I remember happening to another anguished lover I happened to knwo about!) After that Emmet vanishes and no one knows what happened to him.

Did Emmet touch me? No. Was it funny? No. Was it dramatic? No. Did I care for Emmet and his problems? No.

This one goes down in the pile despite a heavy duty cast that included Sean Penn (brilliant) and Uma Thurman with Woody and company popping in once in a while to describe what they believe happened to Emmet. Apparently this Emmet is a fictional guy. Not interesting really. I'd give it a miss. (Watch 'Bananas' instead!)