Buy it... if you seek the kind of small-scale, mystical, eerie, and withdrawn score in Danny Elfman's career that equals The Spitfire Grill for James Horner at about the same time.

Avoid it... if the occasional harmonic beauty that Elfman can create with acoustic guitars and pennywhistle can't substantiate 23 minutes of otherwise directionless pondering.

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Good Will Hunting: (Danny Elfman) Winning over critics without any of the spectacular and flashy elements of its competition in 1997, Good Will Hunting was best described as an ordinary film made enjoyable by the subtle strengths of its individual scenes. Written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and directed by Gus Van Sant, the movie is a "feel-good people-story" starring its two writers alongside Robin Williams and Minnie Driver (all with notable performances). It's a "coming of age" story as well, showing Damon's brilliant youthful mind of Will Hunting at odds with his job as a janitor. His relationships with a professor, therapist, and girlfriend save him from his own temper, which lands him in jail early in the film. Good Will Hunting essentially thrives on scenes of dialogue with these characters, and the screenplay and performances were clever enough to gain the film several Oscar nominations. One of the more curious nominations came for Danny Elfman's score. For a composer whose first decade of compositions at the time were so notable and popular, it is still baffling to accept that Good Will Hunting (along with the equally curious Men in Black) would represent one of Elfman's first simultaneous nominations. His score plays a distinctly faint role in the film, only providing an accent to a handful of scenes, and often underneath dialogue that easily overshadows its impact. Conversely, the songs were the heart and soul of the film, leading to a popular album of their own and causing the Academy to nominate Elfman's work for largely the same reason that Anne Dudley would be nominated (and win) for The Full Monty the same year. In its short running time, Elfman's score for Good Will Hunting served as further proof that the composer's transition from large-scale Gothic efforts to more troubled character scores was in effect.

Some of the instrumental usage from Elfman's collaboration with Van Sant for To Die For would carry over to Good Will Hunting, but with a far more listenable and streamlined personality (by Elfman standards, that is). His score features acoustic guitar, piano, slight orchestra (of strings and woodwinds), whistles, and a light choral effect. The presence of a pennywhistle, often performing longing fragments of the score's title theme over soft guitar accompaniment, provides a distinctly Irish flavor to Good Will Hunting, a seemingly unnecessary choice by Elfman that doesn't address any particular plotline in the film. The solitary tone of the score is its defining aspect, raising adjectives such as mystical, eerie, pondering, ominous, magical, and withdrawn. In this minimalistic package, the score fits the personality of its title character well. Hints of elegance from Black Beauty are countered by dissonance from To Die For, and a slight sense of a plea for help incorporated musically into Edward Scissorhands is also present. Together, Elfman takes seemingly complimentary elements and makes them incongruous for parts of Good Will Hunting; off kilter progressions and rhythms and the slightly detuned mix of the orchestra give the score a wishy-washy sound that yearns for harmonic resolution but only accomplishes it in a few places. In "Main Title," "Them Apples," "Weepy Donuts," and a couple of short performances in between, the primary theme does just that. Not surprisingly, these are the highlights of the score. Like Will Hunting, though, Elfman's score gives the surface impression that it doesn't have a clear sense of direction. There is indeed a development that comes to a distinct conclusion in "Weepy Donuts," but it can slip by unnoticed so easily that the score likely won't maintain the interest of most listeners (outside of the occasional beauty of the whistles over the top of the ensemble).

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The score was never fully released commercially. The two best cues, "Main Title" and "Weepy Donuts," were included on the song compilation album for the film, one of the better products of its age. To boost its own chances for a high Oscar nomination count, Miramax pressed 500 copies of a promo that included 23 minutes of Elfman's music (17 minutes of which was previously unreleased). Miramax actually altered the pressing, causing two promos to exist. The first promo had no label and was 23 minutes long in total. It did not include any songs and had mislabeled tracks near the end (or tracks with no titles at all). The officially marked Miramax variant that followed and was more widely available on the secondary market has roughly 4 more minutes than the other, due to the inclusion of the "Miss Misery" song by Elliot Smith that was also very popular at the time (Elfman would further collaborate with Smith and the resulting music would only be on the commercial album). Both albums featured similar artwork on its packaging; the second (Miramax) promo has "Good Will Hunting" written alone on the side packaging, whereas the first promo (with the mislabeled tracks) has "...by Danny Elfman" on the side next to the title. The few copies of both original promo albums that worked their way to collectors began with a price of $50 at the CD stores in Los Angeles that would redistribute such items from Academy members to fans. But not long after, the promo would fetch bounties over $100, a surprisingly high price for 23 minutes of score, the best seven of which already released. It was always far more economical for most listeners to just purchase the song compilation album. Elfman's score simply is not enthralling enough to merit a search for an original copy of the promo, especially after ten subsequent years of bootlegged versions floating about the community on CDr. Watching a film about a confused genius seeking direction is one thing, but listening to a score that embodies much of the same isn't as thought provoking or inspiring. ***   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

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For Danny Elfman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.18 (in 61 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.17 (in 115,373 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.