Buy it... only if you are one of the few people who have seen the film and seek the original neoclassical music written by Joel McNeely.

Avoid it... even if you are a McNeely enthusiast, for Samantha is among his most mundane works.

McNeely

Samantha: (Joel McNeely) Among the plethora of suburban family-related films of the late 1980's and early 1990's that attempted the delicate balance between insightful drama and wicked comedy, Samantha remains an anonymous entry. The heroine of the story discovers on her 21st birthday that she was left on the doorstep of her adopted parents' home as an infant. She had been the terror of the neighborhood all her life, enacting stunts that would drive any parent or neighbor insane, and she becomes worse after she makes her major discovery. The determined girl (the titular Samantha, of course) launches a search for her biological parents, and in unlikely circumstances, finally confronts them in an strangely bizarre scene. Relevant to film music fans is the fact that girl is phenom on the violin, and a young neighbor of hers is an aspiring cellist, allowing for several on-screen performance scenes that required classical source music to be applied. The problem with the overall equation is that the film, shot by first-time director Stephen La Rocque, couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a drama or a comedy, and thus treats its characters with the same awkward ambivalence as a Cohen Brothers film. The combination of classical music and composer Joel McNeely's score in the film didn't assist in this dilemma, with McNeely's bouncy, often comedic score interspersed between performances of well known classical pieces that run both straight and serious in tone. The score came at a relatively early point in McNeely's career, before he had really established himself in the 1990's, and during the time when many in the industry still considered him a possible future replacement for John Williams. Even two decades later, McNeely had yet to become a featured name in major Hollywood blockbusters, but he has more than proven his viability in a number of genres, including both drama and comedy.

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Unfortunately, Samantha doesn't really manage to excel musically in either category. McNeely wanted to distinguish his contributed underscore from the classical quartet pieces in the film and thus employed a small orchestra that is handled well enough that it produces some fierce noise now and then. The comedic elements bubble along with almost waltz-like rhythms and occasionally boil over into full-fledged timpani-rolling pomp. The girl's whimsical adventures are sometimes served in the form of outward comedy, such as in "Infant Abduction," which opens with light drums and a jazzy rhythm for piano and brass that is faintly reminiscent of Lalo Schifrin's 1960's endeavors. The primary theme for the girl was intentionally made as catchy as possible (to match her personality), and it succeeds in tormenting that character. The hopelessly flighty nature of that theme, however, also succeeds in annoying the listener as well, especially when interspersed with lightly prancing neoclassical mannerisms. A solo violin is sometimes used to represent her talents, though not with enough frequency to be a distinguishing factor. The few moments of dramatic material of subdued volume shed light on the problem with the film itself; after the whimsical comedy cues, the dramatic constructs seem to lack the sincerity necessary for the topic. In these regards, the comedy music in Samantha resembles Mark McKenzie's Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde, and the dramatic side scratches at the style of John Debney's established works for similar projects. On album, the classical music by Mozart, Dvorak, Haydn, and the likes is included in pieces throughout the short cues of original material, causing a disjointed listening experience. Included on that completely out of print product, however, is McNeely's cutely concocted "Mrs. Schtumer's Fifth Symphony" in both quartet format and the original organ performance that torments the girl in her youth. Overall, Samantha is basically functional in its task, but lacks the focus and depth to same unfortunate end as the film itself. **   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

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For Joel McNeely reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.31 (in 16 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.14 (in 7,298 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.