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| Howard |
Duplicity: (James Newton Howard) Following up on
his convoluted but awarded
Michael Clayton, director Tony Gilroy
fashions yet another film involving corporate interests in non-linear
story-telling fashion. In
Duplicity, however, the genre switches
to romantic comedy disguised as suspenseful intrigue, raising the
formula of the spy versus spy scenario from decades past and translating
it from the context of warring governments into one of competing
corporations. The chemistry between leads Julia Roberts and Clive Owen
is key to ensuring that these two conniving tricksters at the top of
their games and on seemingly opposite sides are actually in love with
each other. Gilroy handles the script with enough skill to maintain
audience interest through perpetual motion and surprising twists in
plot, crucial elements if any film like
Duplicity is to succeed.
The collaboration between Gilroy and composer James Newton Howard for
Michael Clayton led to an unlikely and undeserving Academy Award
nomination for Howard. That score was a frightfully dull, atmospheric
experience that was carried by the gravity of its picture, translating
into one of the composer's weakest album presentations of the 2000's.
The equation is obviously quite different for
Duplicity, with the
fluffier feel of the hybrid thriller and espionage tale requiring a far
heightened sense of style. The resulting foray into the world of snazzy,
multi-cultural jazz and the atmosphere of heist music from yesteryear is
a departure from Howard's usual sound in the decade. Gravitating towards
dramatic projects of serious weight or intrigue and fantasy, Howard's
career has been missing the flashy tones of contemporary jazz and light
rock in earnest for quite some time. The resulting exposition of upbeat,
propulsive music is extremely stylish in its ingredients pulled from
several similar genres, though its tone is so overwhelmingly saturated
with the spirit of the on-screen sparring that at times the work borders
the realm of the obnoxious. As such, parts of the caper score skirt
parody territory, which isn't a major detractor in this genre of film,
but it doesn't help the already fragmented listening experience when
heard out of context. Either this music will put a smile on your face or
it'll give you a tremendous headache, and for Howard collectors in
particular, this is a tricky prospect.
Instead of treating
Duplicity like a score that
relies on any of the trademark sounds of Howard's career, consider it a
combination of styles from David Holmes, David Arnold, John DuPrez, and
John Powell, with a hint of Edward Shearmur or Michael Giacchino thrown
in during the moments of full ensemble enthusiasm. The connections to
Holmes' work are by far the most definitive, with much of this score
sounding like
Ocean's Eleven or
Analyze That. The
contemporary band elements are all used in the same ways, and there's a
significant influence from the most hip of sounds that the 1970's had to
offer. Parts seem intentionally dated in sound, while others insert just
enough synthetic sampling in the rhythms to draw references to modern
technology. A small orchestra consisting of strings, woodwinds and
limited brass does not make any dramatic statements on its own. The long
cue "The Formula" perhaps best utilizes their services, producing an
exciting cue that reminds of Powell's related music for the later films
in the franchise of
The Bourne Identity. Several of the soloists
do shine, however, and it's in the piano and acoustic guitar solos that
the score's romantic qualities exist. There are no explicitly developed
themes in
Duplicity, though Howard does indeed offer a descending
idea that is carried through the score's many changes in identity. That
constant shifting of tone, instrumentation, and pacing is the inherent
problem with the soundtrack. There seems to be a marginal influence of
several cultures on the score, too, most notably in the Latin tones of
the guitar and "Split to Miami," which is highly reminiscent of Graeme
Revell's
Out of Time. The pair of "San Diego Airport" and
"Airport Love" offer guitar solos easy on the ears, and "A Cream or a
Lotion?" in the middle presents a lovely piano performance that is,
surprisingly, the highlight of the score's serious half. Most will
remember the music from
Duplicity for its Holmes-like jazz of
certain timelessness. Cue times are often very short, failing to yield a
coherent whole when the score presented on album. That product ends with
an absolutely wretched song, complete with female groans and the same
awkwardly misbalanced personality from which the entire score suffers.
It's hard to knock Howard for branching out into this genre and clearly
enjoy himself in the creative process. But the album's 50 minutes are
extremely disjoined due to the inherent schizophrenia that exists
because of the film's constantly shifting gears.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For James Newton Howard reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.4
(in 70 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.36
(in 86,486 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes a list of performers, but no extra
information about the score or film.
