Buy it... if no measure of positive spirit, even in short length and powerful doses, is too small to deter you from a predictably feel-good score.

Avoid it... if you're typically bothered by anonymous light-drama scores that constantly make you think you've heard the music somewhere before.

Shaiman

Patch Adams: (Marc Shaiman) Seen by some at the time as a desperate attempt by Universal to turn around a dismal 1998 in its final week, Patch Adams was a film with high hopes of pulling all the right emotional strings for audiences during the holidays. Made by the directors of the two Ace Ventura films and the remake of The Nutty Professor, the movie once again asked Robin Williams to reprise that fine line he walked in Dead Poets Society and several other films, allowing his free flowing comedy styles to accentuate an otherwise straight, dramatic performance. The problem with Patch Adams, though, is that it never succeeded in becoming comfortable with either its comedy or drama. Williams plays a mental patient who, at 40 and out of the ward, decides to become a medical student with the intent of using laughter as a method of healing. He obviously clashes with the establishment, and along the journey to its surprisingly upbeat ending, the film offers moments of grandiose speeches and decisions. Williams himself dissolves into some of his typical comedy routines, but his performance is always tethered by the film's almost fatal attempt to pull him back towards sappy and predictable dramatic turns. The film failed critically, slammed for its obvious attempts to manipulate audiences, and some of that endless over-the-top sweetness is owed to Marc Shaiman's equally predictable score. Like John Debney and David Newman, Shaiman often exhibited the ability in the 1990's to write music both shamelessly optimistic and, more importantly, technically anonymous. That anonymity, for all the composers who make a living in the B-rate comedy and light drama genres, is a characteristic that rarely inhibits the effectiveness of the music in their films, but often causes listeners of the music on the album to get that slightly uncomfortable feeling that he or she has heard the music before. Shaiman, more than most others, gives you this feeling; no matter how syrupy the product, you've tasted it before. And yet, it works, and his score for Patch Adams would be his third in four years to take advantage of the expanded Oscar categories for music and gain him an Academy Award nomination.

Strings, harp, chimes, and woodwinds are led by a piano in most of the saccharine thematic development throughout the score. It's the ultimate in feel-good scoring, with never a minor key strike to interrupt the brief, but solid mood of the score. The primary theme is introduced immediately and reprised endlessly throughout Patch Adams, allowing the score to retain a sense of moving harmony at all times. No dull moment exists, with every cue pulling at your emotions with a cymbal-rolling, chime-tapping crescendo of pure goodness. Short bursts of jazzy style, as in the latter moments of "Ranch Reveal" present a slur of the piano with a heightened acoustic guitar rhythm, though these moments are so laced with the same positive spirit as the rest of the score that you barely notice the shift in rhythm. The final two cues on album present the most ambitious recordings, inserting brass counterpoint and snare rhythms into the mix for a reprise of the style heard in The American President. Therein lies the problem with Patch Adams for many score listeners; it's a highly derivative score that creates problems when it uses quotations of style from other Shaiman works (as well as those by other composers) and forces them into the anonymous template heard in Patch Adams. There are touches of influence not only from Shaiman's own works, but from those of Randy Newman, Alan Silvestri, Thomas Newman, and Jerry Goldsmith. The jazzy movements are reminders of Randy Newman's own ventures into the genre, the piano work echo Silvestri's Forrest Gump, the opening to "The Ruling" is suspiciously similar to the end of Thomas Newman's Little Women, and there are thematic structures, mostly performed by woodwinds, that conjure Goldsmith's Love Field. Still, the score's ability to twist all of those elements into a love-fest filled to the brim with light percussion is pure Shaiman, and a solid recording mix of the score adds to its easy lovability. The collection of songs cheapens the product and, with the exception of the first two, aren't that interesting. What remains are 21 minutes of score, and despite its inherent flaws and short length, it's still a worthy used-bin find.

Music as Heard in Film: ****
Music as Heard on CD: ***
Overall: ***

Bias Check:

For Marc Shaiman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.2 (in 5 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.24 (in 17,590 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.