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Filmtracks Editorial Review:
As part of a dual campaign for Academy recognition, a promotional "for your consideration" album of The Family Man was filtered to AMPAS members in January of 2001 containing both the Seal song and the full expansion of Elfman's score. The song is decent, and has an outside chance of a nomination, but whether or not you can tolerate the song yourself depends on how much you enjoy Seal's distinct voice. The Elfman score, on the other hand, is exactly what a large number of his fans want to hear: a return to the fully orchestral and choral majesty of his early 1990's efforts. A fully realized theme dominates the five or six strongest tracks. Often performed with woodwinds and a piano with string accompaniment, the theme is a delicate and wondrous one. It inspires enough awe and beauty to revive thoughts of his darker, gothic scores, but it never falls to the power of despair and melancholy as many of his depressing themes (as some would call them) from those older scores. Instead of dwelling in sadness as we all know Elfman enjoys doing, the score for The Family Man has a child-like spark of energy and optimism that goes together well with the holiday spirit of the film. The score doesn't get silly in the holidays like Scrooged, for instance, but The Family Man offers a more balanced and conservative approach with the percussion that symbolize the holidays. The main titles, one of the two tracks available on the commercial album, features perhaps the most energetic and enthusiastic performance of the Christmas spirit, full of prancing strings, ringing church bells, and jingling tambourines. The track immediately following the titles introduces the light children's choir that Elfman made famous with Edward Scissorhands, and its lofty and sensitive performance here is no different. After a solid first four tracks of score, the next ten short cues offer a more jumbled mix of the full orchestra and Elfman's recent electronic expressions of Instinct and Good Will Hunting. While there are a few cues of high volume in this midsection of Elfman's score, the choppy one-minute tracks feature little to get excited about, with quiet underscore occasionally yielding to the strike of electronic drums. The eighteenth track of score, however, introduces the fantastic conclusion of the album. Of the last ten tracks, only the twenty-fourth score track, "Promise," was made available on the commercial album. "Promise" includes the most gothic and haunting cue, resounding with the same classical development as Black Beauty. The two tracks that will be of most interest to Elfman enthusiasts, though, are not on the commercial album. The twenty-third track features a remarkably beautiful performance of the title theme by a single flute sonically silhouetted against the light choir. The five minute track eventually culminates into a similar performance with the woodwinds and choir joined by full strings and the piano. The final score track is the gem of the promo album. After the previous startling track of electronic percussion a la Good Will Hunting, the final, five-minute track provides the fully matured rendition of the title theme. The orchestra builds in momentum for three minutes before unleashing the theme with the full grandeur of the finale from Edward Scissorhands. It is the best single Elfman cue I have heard in eight years, and it will simply knock your socks off. Because the score and theme are constructed with more major key chords than Elfman traditionally used for such scores as Edward Scissorhands and Sommersby, it doesn't produce the same depressing result. Instead, the theme for The Family Man exquisitely takes flight with an overwhelming sense of optimism and charm. The promotional album originally sold for hundreds of dollars on the secondary market, though bootlegs of that CD are beginning to filter out (without the Seal song). Your decision on whether or not to pursue the album depends on your loyalty to the strongly poetic side of Elfman's work. And even though the full score is presented on this album, only 20 or so minutes of it comprise the beautiful cues of the score. The other half of the score is still listenable --in fact, that body of work represents a healthy and enjoyable combination of Elfman's older orchestral styles and his newer, eletronically percussive ones. In the end, though, the entire score for The Family Man is a stunning comeback for Elfman's emotionally dramatic half, with five to ten minutes of simply unforgettable magic. ****
Track names only available for three tracks
The promotional album from Universal contains no packaging or track names. Alternative packaging art and track listings, as well as extensive audio from the score is available at Ryan Keaveney's Music for a Darkened People site. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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