Sweet and Lowdown

Sweet and Lowdown (1999) is Woody Allen's jazz-age comedy-drama, ready to watch online on iFILM. Sean Penn plays Emmet Ray, a brilliant 1930s guitarist and a thoroughly impossible human being.

Smoke-filled clubs, bootleg whiskey, and an ego the size of a freight train. Emmet swears only one guitarist on earth tops him — the Romani genius Django Reinhardt, playing the cafes of Paris — and the mere thought of the man can make him faint. The rest of the time he shoots rats at the dump, runs with gangsters, burns through cash, and bolts the moment anyone gets close. Hattie (Samantha Morton), a mute laundress, loves him without a single word. Writer Blanche (Uma Thurman) loves the story he'll make.

Allen builds a mock biography of a musician who never existed, splicing in real jazz historians and himself as on-camera "witnesses." Both Penn and Morton earned Oscar nominations, and the guitar you hear is Howard Alden's own playing. Stream Sweet and Lowdown (1999) online on iFILM.