Buy it... if you're not sure which of Cliff Eidelman's light dramatic scores of the middle to late 1990's to sample, for the title theme from Now and Then is as beautiful as the composer's efforts in the genre would get.

Avoid it... if you need more than simply a pretty Rachel Portman-inspired title theme to justify your purchase of an otherwise conservative, piano-dominated effort.

Eidelman

Now and Then: (Cliff Eidelman) Director Lesli Linka Glatter's chick flick about four friends who stick together from childhood to adulthood was doomed by its ridiculously unrealistic script. While the film was advertised based on the names of the four adult stars, the girls that play their 1970 counterparts were the highlight of the film. The story attempted to teach the same old lessons about commitment, friendship, growing old, and other aspects of life that never really resonated at any level. To firm up the film's appeal to its intended audience, it's easy to get the impression that the producers wanted Rachel Portman to write the score for Now and Then. Failing that, they hired the young Cliff Eidelman, who was departing from his first seven years of dramatic score composition to embark on a discovery of fluffy comedies and romantic drama that would eventually hinder his career. After several years of excellent production in the early 1990's, Cliff Eidelman was beginning to experience some road bumps in 1995. With the rejection of his other score of 1995 (Picture Bride) and a year of 1996 during which he would not score a feature film, Eidelman's Now and Then represented the last of a yearly string of solid character drama scores. Such scores would become very much the normal sound for Eidelman in his late-90's production, a long cry away from his most popular and bombastic days of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, but Now and Then would prove to be among the best of these later efforts. Still, in its base construction, Now and Then is much the same as his companion scores for Untamed Heart and One True Thing. The distinguishing element of Now and Then is its gorgeous title theme, tragically heard in full in only two tracks on the album. Between "Main Title" and "On the Swing," there are five minutes of thematic performances that will rival the beauty of most anything by the composer, not to mention the similar works of Rachel Portman. The film's moderate success propelled a popular song album for the film, though, stealing most of the attention away from the short album featuring only Eidelman's score.

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While Eidelman does hint at the beautiful progressions of his title theme in later cues, he does not embellish it with a fully orchestral performance. In both its theme and underscore, Now and Then is a lighthearted and yet touching blend of Rachel Portman and Thomas Newman, with the instrumentation of the latter shining through in some of the clunky but enjoyable instrumentation of "Secret Meeting" (a xylophone, specifically) and a few fleeting moments thereafter. Prancing string and piano rhythms are saturated with Portman's sensibilities. If you are a fan of this genre of Eidelman's works, then you also have to enjoy his use of the piano. The second half of the score for Now and Then is dominated by solo performances of the instrument, and while they may be muted and tame compared to other composers' piano-featured efforts, they are always pleasant. Their simplicity makes for a very easy, although completely background listening experience. Not often does the piano roll with power, and Eidelman's tendency to accompany the instrument with a woodwind of some kind is likely to please any Portman fan; in fact, as you listen to more and more of Eidelman's scores, and as his fans have discovered, his character dramas begin to sound increasingly similar to the small scale Portman scores like The Closer You Get. Fortunately, with the story of Now and Then featuring more positive energy than the forthcoming One True Thing, those of you who were disappointed by the later score might wish to investigate this one. The performances of the piano are more vibrant and the orchestra Eidelman employs is fuller, with a brass section. The later portions of Now and Then offer a secondary theme representing the pact that the young girls make through their seances, and while these brief flourishes from the ensemble are enjoyable, they cannot compete with the primary theme. The spring-like exuberance of that title theme ranks it as one of the most upbeat moments of Eidelman's entire career, and the five minutes of its full performances here are worth the price of the album for any Eidelman collector. If you can somehow acquire the title theme on a compilation, then that would likely satisfy the majority of film music collectors, as it is by far the one fabulous standout cue on album. ***   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Cliff Eidelman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.29 (in 17 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.2 (in 7,740 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.