Low Down has one note to play, and it plays it well, but one note is still one note. Set in Southern California in the 1970s, the film centers on Joe Albany (John Hawkes), a gifted bop pianist whose artistic achievements are always tempered and undermined by his heroin abuse and general tendency toward self-destruction. The film regards Joe through the eyes of his teenage daughter Amy-Jo (Elle Fanning). When he is in her life, she closely observes as he evades police and tries to earn a modest living performing in bars and restaurants. When he floats out of her life, including a two-year stay in Europe, she longs for him and stays with her grandmother, played as a stout maternal force by Glenn Close.

With its evocative Super 16-millimeter photography and golden-brown color palette, the film brings its environments to vivid life. It is no surprise to learn first-time feature director Jeff Preiss is a cinematographer by trade. The smog almost drifts through the screen as the roving camera investigates the decay of the fleabag L.A. hotels and out-of-the-way bars Joe and his daughter navigate. The sun-drenched gloom is as oppressive for the audience as it no doubt it for the marginalized dreamers populating the story. And the acting is as fine as expected considering the caliber of the people involved. Ever a thin, wiry, and charismatic presence, Hawkes is well-cast as Joe, a man whose clear love for his daughter always comes a close second to his devotion to his volatile nocturnal lifestyle. He is at once magnetic and a bit despicable. And Fanning is a highly expressive and fresh performer who, with her searching eyes and flowing tears, can reach into viewers' chests and give their heartstrings a potent tug.

Despite the aforementioned qualities, Low Down is a flawed film. The idea to explore the enigmatic presence of the father via the perception of the wide-eyed daughter ends up a self-defeating one. Neither character comes into complete and satisfying focus. In a general way, we understand she is pained by her father's unpredictability. In a general way, we understand he loves music and cannot stop using heroin. However, their exact motivations and thoughts tend to remain elusive. This is particularly true of her in the second half as she falls for an epileptic drummer (Caleb Landry Jones, with his usual heroin-chic, short-of-breath, wan tics) and begins a random spiral of rebellion broadly attributed to self-loathing. This dearth of clarity regarding its characters is a substantial problem in a film largely without momentum, instead focusing on the usual heroin-story cycle of recovery and relapse, promise and betrayal. It does not move forward or shift gears so much as circle the same miserable, narcotized drain. By the end, it is unfortunately more exhausting and played out than intensely poignant.

C+