''Low Down'' is a 2014 American

biopic A biographical film or biopic () is a film that dramatizes the life of a non-fictional or historically-based person or people. Such films show the life of a historical person and the central character's real name is used. They differ from docudra ...

directed by Jeff Preiss and based on the

memoirs A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiog ...

written by Amy-Jo Albany (portrayed by Elle Fanning) about her father, famed jazz pianist

Joe Albany Joe Albany (born Joseph Albani; January 24, 1924 – January 12, 1988) was an American modern jazz pianist who played bebop with Charlie Parker as well as being a leader on his own recordings. Life and career Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, ...

(portrayed by John Hawkes), and his struggles with drug addiction. The film was executive produced by

Anthony Kiedis Anthony Kiedis ( ; born November 1, 1962) is an American singer and songwriter. He is a founding member and lead vocalist of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. Kiedis and his fellow band members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fa ...

and

Flea Flea, the common name for the order Siphonaptera, includes 2,500 species of small flightless insects that live as external parasites of mammals and birds. Fleas live by ingesting the blood of their hosts. Adult fleas grow to about long, a ...

(who also co-stars in the film) of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The film premiered in competition at

2014 Sundance Film Festival The 2014 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 16, 2014 until January 26, 2014 in Park City, Utah, United States, with screenings in Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance Resort in Utah. The festival opened with ''Whiplash'' directed by Da ...

on January 19, 2014. It won the "Cinematography Award: U.S. Dramatic" at the festival.

Plot summary

Joe Albany was an accomplished jazz pianist during the 1960s through the 1980s, performing with the likes of

Charlie Parker Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form ...

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...

, and

Charles Mingus Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz upright bassist, pianist, composer, bandleader, and author. A major proponent of collective improvisation, he is considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians and ...

before his descent into heroin addiction. The film tells the story of Albany's life from the perspective of his daughter, Amy-Jo Albany, a frequent witness to his drug use (and related legal trouble) as well as his passion for music.

Cast

* John Hawkes as

* Elle Fanning as Amy-Jo Albany * Lena Headey as Sheila Albany *

Glenn Close Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress. Throughout her career spanning over four decades, Close has garnered numerous accolades, including two Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards ...

as Gram *

as Hobbs * Caleb Landry Jones as Cole *

Taryn Manning Taryn Manning is an American actress and singer. She is best known for portraying Tiffany "Pennsatucky" Doggett in the Netflix original series ''Orange Is the New Black'' (2013–2019), Cherry in ''Sons of Anarchy'' (2008–2010), Nola in ''Hus ...

as Colleen * Peter Dinklage as Alain *

Billy Drago William Eugene Burrows (November 30, 1945 – June 24, 2019), known professionally by his stage name Billy Drago, was an American television and film actor. Drago's films, in which he was frequently cast as a villain, included Clint Eastwood's ...

as Lew *

Burn Gorman Burn Hugh Winchester Gorman (born 1 September 1974) is an English actor and musician. He is known for his roles as Owen Harper in the BBC series ''Torchwood'' (2006–2008), Phillip Stryver in ''The Dark Knight Rises'' (2012), Karl Tanner in the ...

as Parole Officer Wiggenhern * Tim Daly as Dalton *

Linda Wang Linda Hsien Wang (born 19??) is an American actress. Also known as Wáng Xiànlíng (王憲苓), she was raised in Queens, New York and has been profiled in Chinese-language media in the United States Early life and education At seven years old, ...

as Chinese Woman * Rain Phoenix as Kitty *Wiley Pickett as Gentleman Cowboy

Production

Actor Mark Ruffalo was originally cast as Joe Albany in 2011 but was forced to back out due to scheduling issues and production being delayed.

Release

The film made its debut at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...

on January 19, 2014, winning an award for Best Cinematography. It also won Best Film at the New Hampshire Film Festival in 2014. The first official trailer was released on September 18, 2014. The film opened to a limited release on October 24, 2014 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and October 31, 2014 in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

Reception

''Low Down'' was met with mixed reviews.

Review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

sampled 50 critics' reviews, 25 positive and 25 negative, bringing the score to 50%, averaging 5.7/10. The film's consensus reads: "Rich in mood and on-screen talent but lacking in narrative depth, ''Low Down'' tells an oft-told tale with a troubling dearth of imagination."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, another review aggregator, gives the film 58 out of 100 based on reviews from 21 critics (six of them positive, thirteen mixed, and two negative), with its general agreement being "mixed or average reviews".

Matt Zoller Seitz Matt Zoller Seitz (born December 26, 1968) is an American film and television critic, author and film-maker. Career Matt Zoller Seitz is editor-at-large at RogerEbert.com, and the television critic for '' New York'' magazine and Vulture.com, as ...

, writing for

RogerEbert.com ''RogerEbert.com'' is an American film review website that archives reviews written by film critic Roger Ebert for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' and also shares other critics' reviews and essays. The website, underwritten by the ''Chicago Sun-Times' ...

, gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, calling it "a very good jazz movie and a very good heroin movie," while Rex Reed described Elle Fanning's performance as "heartbreaking". George Varga of the ''

San Diego Union-Tribune ''The San Diego Union-Tribune'' is a metropolitan daily newspaper published in San Diego, California, that has run since 1868. Its name derives from a 1992 merger between the two major daily newspapers at the time, ''The San Diego Union'' and ...

'' deemed ''Low Down'' "a grimly gripping movie" but was less effusive than Seitz, giving it two-and-a-half stars.

David Edelstein David Edelstein (born 1959) is a freelance American film critic who has been the principal film critic for ''Slate'' and ''New York'' magazine, among others, and has appeared regularly on NPR's ''Fresh Air'' and ''CBS Sunday Morning'' programs. O ...

, in ''

Vulture A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including Condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to North and ...

'', praised the performances by Hawkes, Fanning, and much of the supporting cast, but felt that the film was "not as entertaining as" the book on which it was based: "The weakness of ''Low Down'' is that it misses the wry tone and scruffy, eccentrically funny parts of my-JoAlbany’s memoir."

References

External links

* *{{IMDb title, tt1864405, Low Down 2014 films 2010s musical drama films American biographical drama films American independent films American musical drama films Biographical films about musicians Jazz films Films about drugs Films about heroin addiction Films about pianos and pianists Films set in the 1960s Films set in the 1970s Sundance Film Festival award winners Cultural depictions of American men Cultural depictions of jazz musicians 2014 drama films 2014 independent films Films about father–daughter relationships 2010s English-language films 2010s American films