Buy it... if you want an upbeat variant on Alexandre Desplat's score for Birth, or you appreciated the score's light touch in the film itself.

Avoid it... if you expect any sense of regal authority or genuine sorrow extending from Desplat's surprisingly flighty and prickly score.

Desplat

The Queen: (Alexandre Desplat) With high critical acclaim, Stephen Frears' examination of the British government and Royal Family's reaction to the death of Princess Diana in 1997 has swept The Queen into a substantial number of bids for major awards. Most of the media attention worldwide after the tragic event was focused on the circumstances of the crash that killed the princess, as well as the public's overwhelming outpouring of emotion in response. But in the United Kingdom, there was controversy about how the Royal Family dealt with the death. Frears' film depicts the responses by both Queen Elizabeth II and newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair, especially addressing the seemingly cold and distant behavior of the Queen herself. Of particular note in the film has been its acting performances, with outstanding praise for Helen Mirren's title performance, and the original score by the increasingly popular French composer Alexandre Desplat. Since 2003, Desplat has written scores across many genres for increasingly notable films, ranging from his initial hit, Girl With a Pearl Earring, to his action and suspense scores of the past year, Hostage and Firewall. Compared to all these other efforts, Desplat's music for The Queen is not flashy nor particularly impressive, but its service towards the restrained distinction of the film has been successful in garnering award nominations. Desplat's approach to the score would have to answer the same questions that countless composers before have grappled with, determining where to draw the line between the classical tradition of royalty and the sensibilities of the modern ears in the audiences. The task has been accomplished with great popularity before (George Fenton's Ever After: A Cinderella Story comes to mind), and Desplat would handle the situation by balancing the rhythmic movement associated with waltzes and high society, as well as some predictable instrumentation (such as a harpsichord), with his typically array of electronics and a generally more accessible style of presenting his rhythms.

Desplat's score has surprisingly few moments of outright "stately" music. The opening cue, "The Queen," features a regal, but still restrained movement of timpani accompanied by layered horns. Both the harp and harpsichord are employed by Desplat for the purpose of elegance, and a flourish of the harp near the outset establishes that stature. When the rhythms are transferred to the woodwind section, with light violin pulsations and woodwind solos at the forefront, comparisons to Birth can be made. This sense of perpetual movement is introduced in "Hills of Scotland" and is highlighted by the "Princess" cues, adding a synthetic side to a harpsichord that seems perhaps unnecessary, but is by no means offensive. In "People's Princess I" we hear the main thematic representation of the Queen over this rhythm, performed on a sparsely rendered and almost prickly harpsichord with faint dissonant violin notes occasionally providing discomfort over the top. One part of this theme, hinted at in the previous cue, is almost playful in its bouncy, child-like movement. Likewise almost comical is the theme provided for Blair in "A New Prime Minister." When the characters are together, a waltz-like rhythm is performed by dry strings and is accompanied by flighty and almost dreamlike performances of meandering motifs by the harpsichord, harp, and most strikingly the xylophone. By "Elizabeth & Tony," the tone of these interactions are so circus-like that they badly detract from whatever sense of importance either character had earlier in the score, not to mention the bizarre element of mourning that is never present in these cues. Making it worse is that the subsequent track for the two, "Tony & Elizabeth," is the exact same performance... a reprise of the same track (the same applies to the two "People's Princess" tracks, cutting Desplat's material down to 32 minutes of original score overall). The sadness is more evident in "H.R.H.," "Mourning," and "River of Sorrow," but the only true emotional impact of these cues exists in the soft timpani setting the bass of the cue. There is surprisingly little depth to much of the score; its sound is clinical and borders on insincere for much of its length, and perhaps this was the point.

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If the seeming detachment of the Queen was the aim of the score, then Desplat has succeeded very well. There is very little warmth to be heard outside of the full ensemble performances of "The Queen Drives" and the finale crescendo in "The Queen of Hearts." The fault of this lack of emotional punch, regardless of the music's size, is attributable to both the weakness of the themes and the daintiness of Desplat's feathery touch. The prancing innocence of the primary theme, while shedding some its fluffiness at the end, doesn't lend any credibility to the power of the position (and maybe, given that the Royal Family has been reduced to a group of figureheads and gossip targets now, that was the point). Additionally, never in the score is there a convincing sense of loss in the performance. Even while restrained, an ensemble can convey great sorrow, and yet the London Symphony Orchestra, despite all its abilities, is never allowed to form the layers of depth perhaps required by a score for either royalty or the aftermath of a massively tragic event. Some might make wisecracks about having a French composer write this score, though that's likely more humorous than substantively applicable. But at any rate, Desplat's score suffers from a significant disconnect in its development of themes and attitude, leaving only its consistently rhythmic movement on CD as an attraction. Adding to the oddity of the listening experience is the Lynne Dawson and the BBC Singers' performance of Giuseppe Verdi's "Libera Me" (from the 1868 "Manzoni Requiem"), and while the massive operatic recording was made at the highly charged Westminster Abbey funeral of Diana, the poor quality of the live recording (with high-end distortion) diminishes it significantly. And, compared to Desplat's low-key score, it's a splash of water in the face at the end of the album. On the whole, this final track doesn't live up to the hype, and neither does Desplat's score. Not only does The Queen fail to compete with most of Desplat's other, finer works, but it can potentially irritate you on album with its dainty flightiness and insincere sorrow. And if it seems repetitious, you're not losing your mind; the album repeats multiple tracks twice to extend its running time. **   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Alexandre Desplat reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.21 (in 19 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.1 (in 10,771 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.