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Review of Enola Holmes (Daniel Pemberton)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you seek perhaps the most infectiously positive,
explosively exuberant, sneakily lovely, and wildly grandiose music
to grace a film in quite some while.
Avoid it... if you have no love for overblown crescendos of symphonic punchline humor closing out all too many cues, Daniel Pemberton exercising few narrative restraints in this frenzied listening experience.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Enola Holmes: (Daniel Pemberton) You have to
commend author Nancy Springer for finding a public domain property like
Sherlock Holmes and adapting it nicely into her own stories, including
an initial book that spawned 2020's movie adaptation, Enola
Holmes. That didn't stop the Conan Doyle Estate from unsuccessfully
suing the bejesus out of distributor Netflix to reclaim some of that
intellectual property. The plot of the book and film proposes that while
audiences are familiar with Sherlock's older brother, Mycroft, the duo
actually had an ambitious and brilliant younger sister named Enola. Her
feminist mother teaches her how to outfight and outwit friends and
enemies alike before suddenly disappearing on her sixteenth birthday.
Enola is left to escape from a boarding school to investigate her
mother's whereabouts, avoid her caring but aloof siblings, and become
entangled in the affairs of young Lord Tewkesbury, who has immense
family problems of his own. The two spend Enola Holmes avoiding
and foiling adversaries together and apart, Enola proving victorious as
expected and ready for other adventures in sequel films that appear
likely. The film's irreverent English sensibilities earned significant
praise, and its original music by composer Daniel Pemberton, who enjoyed
a breakthrough in 2020 artistically, is widely heralded as well. The
assignment was something of a challenge for Pemberton, who had spent his
career writing counterculture music that expresses creative style
juxtapositions rather than anything really conventional. Certainly,
Enola Holmes represents his most "conventional" score to this
point in his career, but that doesn't mean that it is anything
approaching "normal." The instrumental balances in the score are as
quirky as his rhythmic and melodic inventiveness, the music meant as
humorously rooted despite whatever emotion is being played to. The
structure of his recording is built around the notion of the punchline,
a huge portion of his cues utilizing ridiculously momentous crescendos
or finales that resolve on an orchestral hit on key. This
pseudo-classical pomposity is balanced by a homeliness and gypsy spirit
that clearly seeks to throw cold water in the face of any harpsichord
that strays too near. In some ways, its infectiously positive spirit
reflects the appeal of Nami Melumad and Michael Giacchino's just
previously released An American Pickle even if their plundering
of ethnic musical styles is completely different.
The precocious zaniness heard in Enola Holmes is the kind of maddeningly funny but borderline insufferable tone that Danny Elfman explored during the 1980's in his film music, but Pemberton takes mannerisms from the likes of John Williams and Max Richter and tosses them into this salad as well. The exuberance factor cannot be ignored, as it infuses a modern touch of carefree hipness into an otherwise classical environment. The resulting face punch may be too contrived for some listeners, especially with the overblown crescendos all over the place (the "Train Escape" even has two!), but you can't help but admire Pemberton's panache even if you find the album a challenging experience. Conventional orchestral colors are the basis for bulk of the score, that alone a deviation for the composer, and the oboe, harp, and piano in particular are highlighted. A gypsy element fuels inevitable comparisons to Hans Zimmer's Sherlock Holmes music, though these connections are rare in the score. Solo contributions from accordion, banjo, dulcimer, fiddle, pipe organ, celeste, harpsichord, and acoustic guitar are joined by an ethereal female vocal to offer a culture clash of sounds that Pemberton is happy to oblige. The orchestrations and placement of each soloist are truly accomplished in Enola Holmes, the composer's refusal to abide by instrumental conventions a favorable proposition with the full ensemble as a base. With these players, Pemberton sets out to force several rhythms and themes against each other in largely tonal and accessible ways. His three primary themes for the score, joined by a siren call for Enola's mother, are not omnipresent, nor are they always developed to the extent that you would hope for, but the composer still succeeds quite well in his narrative attributions. The main theme for Enola herself is not the most frequently referenced idea, but it cranks up the charm factor so much that you won't soon forget it. The theme is built upon a corresponding rhythmic figure for the character that sometimes carries over as a base under other themes. The score opens and closes with the oboe as the heart of this theme, heard at 1:09 into "Enola Holmes (Wild Child)" and closing out the cue. It continues in fuller ensemble form at 0:11 into "Mycroft & Sherlock Holmes" over the same rhythm, culminating in one of the score's many momentous finales to a cue. The theme is slowed significantly in "Fields of London" for more romantic strings but returns to its original enthusiasm at the start and end of "School Escape," splashing with a massive crescendo, of course. The main Enola theme is sadly missing from much of the middle of the Enola Holmes score, but it offers its zealous joy to "Ha!" over acoustic guitar rhythms and wraps the affair with a huge symphonic version bolstered by commendable brass renditions in "Enola Holmes (The Future is Up to Us)." Not coincidentally, the solo oboe is reprised at the end for a soft resolution. In between these cues is the score's more frequently stated thematic identity, that of mystery and the search for Enola's mother. The mystery theme proves itself more malleable over the long haul, and it's even capable of exhibiting the same bouncy charm as the main theme with its own underlying rhythmic formations. This mystery theme opens the score at 0:17 into "Enola Holmes (Wild Child)" as a preview and serves the same role on flute at 0:08 into "Gifts From Mother." The theme matures in "Cracking the Chrysanthemums Cypher," using celeste and glockenspiel with the sense of Williams deviousness, raising memories of everything from The Witches of Eastwick to the Harry Potter scores. The theme adopts the Enola rhythm in "The Game is Afoot," once again building to a huge finale. A lively gypsy arrangement in "London Arrival" is followed by a flute opening to "Limehouse Lane" amongst swirling accompaniment in true Williams style. An early reference to the mystery theme in "Fight Combat" yields to insane rhythmic material and another major statement that builds to silly crescendo at the end. "Forest Clues" also uses this theme over the Enola rhythm, and it explodes at 1:35 into "School Escape," blown up to massive proportions and another grand finale. A lovely variant of this idea is explored by solo piano at outset of "An Old Friend," a hidden highlight of the score that envelops some of the siren call motif's progressions and continues its character into "Mother." At times related to this theme is that siren call motif for the mother, distinguished by its solo female vocals and similarly serving the same general purpose of loss and search as "Scully's Serenade" in Mark Snow's later "The X-Files" seasons. Its presence is established late in "Gifts From Mother" and "Cracking the Chrysanthemums Cypher" and returns at 0:38 into "Limehouse Lane." It is developed into more of a theme on strings in "Making a Lady," with the vocals return at the end. There's a slight reference at the end of "Tick Tock" (before... guess what? A big finale!), and it wafts through the start of "For England" before morphing into the love theme. As it receives resolution in "Mother" with voice over piano, the idea is undeniably and absolutely heartbreaking. The last major theme from Pemberton in Enola Holmes represents the boyish Lord Tewkesbury and the affection that Enola develops for him. Hints of the underlying waltz occur during their meeting in "Nincompoop." The idea is initially expressed in full by the gypsy side of the score, "Marquis" defining the melody with these elements before a very attractive tone prevails by the end of that cue. Even more quirky style presents the theme in "Dressing Up Box." The love theme is pretty on piano, woodwinds, and strings in "Tewkesbury's Trail" over Enola's rhythm but finds its destiny starting at 1:36 on subtle celeste and voice in "For England." The gorgeous "Enola & Tewkesbury Farewell" offers the identity on solo piano and finally lifts Enola's rhythm to turn the theme into an extension of hers. Not surprisingly, the cue ends in with bloated ensemble swell. Outside these thematic statements, the Enola Holmes score supplies several unique moments worth mentioning, including its fleeting action, suspense, and horror passages. The second half of "Limehouse Lane" is totally brutal in tone, the closest to pure horror here, and ambitious action rhythms build to huge crescendos of force in "Train Escape" and "Escaping Lestrade," the latter with flutes performed after their players must have eaten bowls of chili peppers. As an instrumental aside, the acoustic guitar and saxophone additions in "Messages For Mother" are quite amusing. Likewise, the organ, bassoons, and outrageous classicism of "Basilwether Hall" are humorously bad, but they do mutilate the love theme intelligently. "Edge of a Cliff" goes full Max Richter in its violin rhythms (before... guess what? A big finale!), and "Tick Tock" is a throwback Pemberton sound effects cue with ominously growling orchestral textures. Altogether, Enola Holmes is a mixture of incredibly inventive, engaging, and enthusiastic attitude and insanely disjointed instrumental quirkiness. When this score excels, it enthralls you, breaks your heart, and piques your intellectual interest. When it tries your patience, it's usually doing so as Pemberton tries to be too cute with one of his endless crescendos of pomposity or gets sidetracked by the darker passages. When you evaluate these two tendencies of the score together, however, the positives far outweigh the negatives. On album, the presentation may benefit from abandoning any attempt to program a chronological narrative organization and instead place the Enola theme's portions together in one group, the love theme and mother material in another, and the mystery theme's boisterous variants in one more. The score has outstanding cues throughout but needs some care when admiring its explosively wild ride outside of the film. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 66:31
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes long notes about the score from the director and the composer.
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