Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you gravitate towards Hans Zimmer's tender and innocent romance music and would enjoy a consistent 30 minutes of its hopelessly aloof orchestral sensibilities. Avoid it... if the same clarinet theme over and over and over again, interrupted by almost no deviation in rhythm or instrumentation, could drive you to the conclusion that you never want to have children of your own. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Nine Months: (Hans Zimmer/Nick Glennie-Smith) Would anybody really have paid attention to Nine Months in the summer of 1995 (when theatres were full of many outstanding films that season) if its heartthrob star, Hugh Grant, hadn't been caught in a car with a Hollywood hooker of dubious gender? In the process of benefitting from thousands of young and middle-aged women standing in streets with big sandwich-board signs saying "I would have done it for free, Hugh!," the movie turned out to be a moderate success at the box office. Director Chris Columbus adapted Nine Months himself from the French screenplay "Neuf Mois" and attempted to once again use individually hilarious scenes to float his newest endeavor the same way both Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire had captured immense audience interest. The problem with Nine Months, however, was that Columbus attempted to combine the slapstick comedy common in his films with a dramatic look at issues involving pregnancy. The stellar supporting cast stole the show away from Grant and co-star Julianne Moore in their portrayals of awkwardly funny characters, including Robin Williams' token bit role. The film has few moments of shady emotions, instead mostly featuring one charming sequence after another, and this lofty romantic sentimentality translated directly to Hans Zimmer's score for the film. For a project that would have seemed tailor-made for Rachel Portman, Zimmer actually produces a piece of music that shares several distinct characteristics with Portman's typical writing for the genre. Zimmer's inspiration for the film's theme was reportedly the birth of his own child, and the omnipresent title theme in Nine Months is actually derivative of an idea which the composer had developed before shooting even began on this project. The fit between Zimmer's own inspiration and the film's demeanor is snug, and the resulting score would be one of few completely innocent and lovely romance pieces that Zimmer would write in his post-Crimson Tide era of action and adventure, foreshadowing Something's Gotta Give and Lauras Stern. The title theme for Nine Months inspired by Zimmer's own child suffices in its simple adaptation of tired, major-key progressions from classical pieces a hundred times over. A minimal level of development in counterpoint and instrumental variation causes the standard string flourishes of this theme to become old pretty fast. As is the case with Portman's romance scores, the sheer lightness of the music box-approach and nearly endless clarinet performances in Nine Months cause the theme to over-extend its welcome by the end of its 30-minute presence on album. The melody itself seems like an adaptation of Randy Edelman's main identity for Kindergarten Cop, and there is a lightly chopping rhythmic sequence at about eight minutes into "It's a Boy" that is lifted almost entirely from that previous score. Ironically, Nine Months could have used substantially more of this low key rhythmic excitement to assist it in moving the score along. The only break from the extremely consistent performances of Zimmer's theme comes with the "From Russia..." cue, which features a more gothic interpretation of the title theme with the deep male choral backing heard earlier in Lion King and later in countless Media Ventures scores. Written by Nick Glennie-Smith, this cue has more comedy stuffed into its one minute of duration than the entire rest of the score combined, and it's no surprise that it is the lasting highlight of the entire work. Zimmer allowed himself to become hopelessly charmed by the film's overall premise, leading to a monothematic and completely unwavering sense of goodness, and he thus overlooks several individual humorous moments. No unique twists of rhythm, sparks of instrumental personality, or even the slightest tempo variation on the title theme are to be heard. If you need a mood perk, this is a good tool of cheer, but even then, it could leave you seeking more than just an ice cream cone by the end. On album, a healthy dose of this redundant attitude is presented after three well known light rock romance songs of yesteryear. The Van Morrison song "These Are the Days," however, heard at the start and end of the film, is not included on the product. If you gravitate towards this lighthearted side of Zimmer and Glennie-Smith's writing, you'd be much better suited by seeking their more developed score for Lauras Stern nearly a decade later. *** Track Listings:
Total Time: 44:46
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