PLUSES: Mr. Penn's carefully stylized performance is surprisingly low-key for an actor who has specialized in tantrums.

Playing winningly against type, he makes a charming and surprisingly low-key amateur detective in "Murder in a Small Town," a two-hour A&E movie to be shown tomorrow night.

Russia's reaction to this charter has been "surprisingly low-key," American officials say.

From Oprah's surprisingly low-key farewell to the year's most soul-crushing break-up on The Good Wife (Kalicia, no!)

Despite the show-stopping flair of Mr. Friedman's aesthetic sleight-of-hand, the artist himself is surprisingly low-key, intensely serious about his concept and craft.

Beach life is surprisingly low-key and uncommercialised.

The game was surprisingly low-key, with fans occupying no more than a third of the 50,000 seats in the Seibu Dome.

For a play that deals with life and death, "A Quiet End," directed by Tony Giordano at the Theater Off Park, is surprisingly low-key.

Hardware requirements are surprisingly low-key.

However, despite all this earlier drama, this year Fantasia maintained a surprisingly low-key, drama-free pregnancy (other than a grilling by TV talk show host Wendy Williams).