Buy it... if you are an established fan of Alexandre Desplat's understatedly dramatic, remarkably intimate, and instrumentally precise style.

Avoid it... if precision in structure, performance, and recording cannot alone sustain music that remains surprisingly cold and distant during its entire length.

Desplat

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: (Alexandre Desplat) Author F. Scott Fitzgerald penned this fairy tale in 1922, and it's surprising that the story did not inspire a more successful mainstream film from Hollywood before 2008. The entire lifetime of Benjamin Button would have passed in that time, famously aging in reverse through the majority of the 20th Century. The screenplay by Forrest Gump scribe Eric Roth and direction by the notoriously dark David Fincher take Fitzgerald's idea as only the foundation for an entirely different version of the tale, gathering widespread praise that figures to propel the film favorably into the awards season. Composer Alexandre Desplat, himself gaining steam in America over the 2000's, faced many of the same dilemmas as the make-up artists for the picture, writing music and then manipulating it structurally and emotionally to account for the awkward backwards aging of the title character. A significant expanse of American and world history is covered in the running time of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, allowing the composer to also address that character's ever changing surroundings. The opportunity for creativity in inverted musical constructs was almost limitless for this assignment, and Desplat was indeed keenly aware of writing major and minor key ideas that could be performed in reverse effectively. Another major element in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is the concept of time itself, and Desplat addresses this idea with a sense of rhythmic movement that in many ways defines the score. Pacing is extremely important in the work, and collectors of the composer's music will recognize familiar employment of waltz rhythms throughout. Like Forrest Gump, there is an affable sense of innocence to the title character that is also evident in the music; while never as sappy or melodramatic as Alan Silvestri's popular score for the previous character, Desplat does offer Mr. Button a theme that is highly malleable but always rooted in an upbeat attitude that usually conveys a delicate spirit. Outside of a few necessary action sequences, the score for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is surprisingly even tempered, highly consistent in its soft, pleasant variations on the Button and time motifs and rhythms. Fans of the composer will be thrilled by the resulting intimate nature of the score.

	Learn about supporting Filmtracks

The key to appreciating the music for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is to pay attention to the details of the deliberate rhythms, the instrumental colors, and, most importantly, their mix. This is a score that requires a quiet environment and correlation between the instrumentation, their constructs, and their corresponding meanings in the film. Everything about Desplat's work here is subtle, starting with the very slowly shifting series of instrumental solos to address the different periods and locations in the film and finishing with the agonizingly deliberate unfolding of themes in the final cues. An extreme amount of patience is required when listening to this score, and even then, some deconstruction of the main theme to explore its forward and backwards incarnations will occupy the brain for a while. From a technical standpoint, both in writing and (especially) in the precision of the performances and recording, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a very strong musical conceptualization of the story. As a listening companion, however, the score is surprisingly cold and detached. The very slow tempos and deliberate statements of theme, especially in the latter half of the score, cause the music to stand at a distance. The love theme for Benjamin and Daisy lacks any warmth in its sparse presentations on strings and woodwinds. The sense of innocence that runs through the score never allows for a lush, romantic element to fully address that love, alienating the listener in the process. The piano solo to close out the score is devoid of passion, a description that could very well apply to much of the remainder of the score. Thus, you hear a technically intellectual score that serves its purpose, but outside of the slightly deeper layers of "Postcards," there is little in Desplat's work for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button that will actively engage you even if you choose to fully envelope yourself in the listening experience. The inevitability of the plodding rhythm for the concept of time is, therefore, the most dominant factor in restraining the score's heart. On album, Concord Records included a compilation of songs and dialogue from the film on a second CD separate from the 60 minutes of score on the product, a welcome move. While Desplat may receive considerable awards recognition for this score due to the film's hype, don't expect to be overwhelmed by any part of it. ***   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Alexandre Desplat reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.21 (in 19 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.1 (in 10,771 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.