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The Time Traveler's Wife: (Mychael Danna) The
writers of romance novels will attempt to conjure any bizarre
circumstance through which to test the boundaries of romance, and in
Audrey Niffenegger's lengthy, bestselling novel, a new twist of science
fiction is applied to the average contemporary love story. The man in
this tale is an introverted sort who has traveled through time
uncontrollably for most of his life but always returns inevitably to the
current timeline. Most of his trips send him to places or people
important to him, and he watches the woman of his dreams grow up from a
girl until, inevitably, the two end up together as adults. There are
tear-jerking opportunities galore in
The Time Traveler's Wife,
though the fact that the man spins through time naked is among the few
humorous aspects of the idea. Much of the film concentrates, obviously,
on how the woman copes with her suddenly disappearing soulmate, a
somewhat frequent event that continues despite the fact they start a
family. Men hoping to be presented with a good time paradox or two to
chew on will be disappointed by what otherwise can be classified as a
"chick flick," and reviewers were pretty much split among those who
could tolerate the concept and those who found it shallow. Writing the
score for
The Time Traveler's Wife was Mychael Danna, an
intriguing choice for director Robert Schwentke to turn to after
employing James Horner for
Flightplan several years prior.
Danna's career has been well constructed to handle the strange and
exotic, the results almost always intelligent and thought provoking.
Straight forward romances are another issue, however. He has ventured
into this genre into the past, most notably for
Bounce, but the
vast majority of his most discussed work has been written for worldly or
exotic subject matter that has allowed him to exhibit his masterful
skills at Middle Eastern and other regional instrumentation.
To hear Danna mostly jettison his comfortable
sensibilities and tackle a film that would, twenty years ago, have been
the domain of John Barry, is definitely different. Despite the
opportunity to score the fantasy element of
The Time Traveler's
Wife with an extension of his foreign-sounding tones, Danna instead
handles the film as though it were primarily a contemporary romance. He
does insert bowl and synthetic effects to create an ambience of
uncertainty in many places, including a specific motif for the time
traveling, but most of the score is conservatively orchestral and
harmonious. Don't look for Danna's thematic constructs blow you away;
there's no single progression in the score that you will recall in its
entirety even after the third or fourth listening experience. But the
environment in films like this is all that counts, and Danna's tender
piano ramblings under lovely string and woodwind counterpoint (as in
"Who Would Want That" and "It's a Girl") is occasionally joined by a
mournful solo cello. Despite some impressive work on the latter
instrument, it's the delicate, flowing piano that steals the show,
conveying many of the overdue, engaging warmth in the second half of
The Time Traveler's Wife. A slightly wet mix to this instrument's
contribution gives the ambience the necessary free-floating sense of
fantasy and distance. The final cues in the score offer the string
section in its most robust, melancholy performances, sufficing in their
expressions of hope and despair but never overplaying their hand.
Unfortunately, the conclusion of the score on album (heard in "See You
Again") offers little hope in terms of symphonic warmth, instead turning
to the synthetic realm to close out the score on an uneasy note. The
aforementioned unconventional elements for the time travel aspect of the
story include Gamelan bowls, a grating synthetic effect in the treble,
and a groaning, almost menacing electronic droning in the bass region
for the dread of another transfer through time.
The use of electronically manipulated, backwards
samples for the treble time travel effect is too predictable, tired in
its application here; it's the kind of relatively cheap trick that the
creative likes of Jerry Goldsmith would not have likely resorted to, and
Danna is better than that, too. Otherwise, between the bowls, slightly
elevated light percussive rhythms, and plucked strings in a few cues,
some listeners will hear a touch of Thomas Newman. The environment of
The Time Traveler's Wife is well represented by Danna's work,
though the lack of memorable theme does hinder the overall presentation.
Slight references to the primary idea, such as the one on strings in the
middle of "No Tracks in the Snow," leave you wanting more continuity. If
you don't crank up the volume on this album, you will likely miss what
Danna does offer. Only in a few circumstances, such as the end of "I
Never Had a Choice," will the dissonant bass electronics disturb the
soundscape. Even when appreciated for its intimacy at high volumes,
however, while soothing and beautiful in its whole, the score leaves you
slightly cold, yearning for a bit more potential to be explored in these
constructs. The flow of the album, which did not receive a factory
pressing on CD (leaving it to download and "disc on demand" services),
is mostly intact, save for the insertion of one of the three source
songs in the middle. A portion of the Christmas hymn "Es Ist Ein Ros"
does creep into the score cue "Five Years." Otherwise, the other two
non-score tracks are songs relevant to the on-screen performances or
usage in the film's trailer (both promise to be easy on the ears even if
they don't share the same tragedy inherent in the score). Ultimately,
Danna's work for
The Time Traveler's Wife comes excruciatingly
close to earning a four-star rating, but its detached character
(possibly by necessity) and unrealized thematic development make it
among the best three-star scores you will hear. Just make sure you
amplify it, because otherwise it will pass you by without as much as a
single jolt to stir you from your slumber.
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| Bias Check: | For Mychael Danna reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.33 (in 12 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3
(in 3,845 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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There exists no formal packaging for the initial release of this album.
