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Exit to Eden
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Composed and Co-Produced by:
Conducted by:
David Snell
Orchestrated by:
Lawrence Ashmore
Gavin Greenaway
John Bell
Co-Produced by:
Maggie Rodford
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LABEL & RELEASE DATE
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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Regular U.S. release.
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AWARDS
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None.
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ALSO SEE
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Buy it... only if you can forgive Patrick Doyle for an early
strategic misfire in his career, the comedy of this score ineffective
and light drama not long enough to maintain interest.
Avoid it... if you love a good parody score, because this one fails
to achieve the needed cheeky extravagance in attitude that this film's
plot really needed.
BUY IT
 | | Doyle |
Exit to Eden: (Patrick Doyle) An abundance of
full-frontal female nudity wasn't enough to save the oddball 1994 movie
Exit to Eden from a humiliating distinction as one of the worst
films of the decade. Despite director Garry Marshall's reputation for
delivering romantic comedies of great popularity, this entry was a clear
miss, taking an Anne Rice story and butchering its narrative on the way
to mass ridicule. The basic premise has some promise, an average
repressed guy with a BDSM fetish going on vacation to an island of
dominatrix fantasies, Eden, but accidentally getting caught up in a
criminal operation that sees both the jewel thieves and the police
chasing each other in this bizarre location. The man has to evade the
villains while also finding himself as the submissive target of the lead
dominatrix on the island, who reluctantly falls in love with the doofus.
Rosie O'Donnell and Dan Aykroyd provide comedy relief undercover (and in
some nasty outfits) while Dana Delany leaves absolutely nothing to the
imagination as the leading woman in control. The film's problem,
ironically, is that it's incredibly boring, the thriller potion always
limp and the BDSM topic never really as whipping as it could have been,
leaving a sappy and stupid love story by the end. The score landed on
the lap of Scottish composer Patrick Doyle, who had plenty of thriller
experience by 1994 but, aside from the cheerier portions of Much Ado
About Nothing, was a total novice in the comedy genre. Like the
production as a whole, its music struggles to decide if it should
plunder the parody element or not, and Doyle tries to straddle the line
partway towards that strategy and largely fails. The music is basically
sufficient in its haphazard addressing of several different emotional
aspects of the story, but it wavers between an embrace of brazen
stupidity and wholesome romance, leaving the whole work terribly
disjointed. On the side is the score's most prominent thematic presence
for the criminal aspect, which attempts to be moderately exhilarating
and cheeky at the same time. One could say that the music accomplishes
exactly what the film required, blow by blow, but obviously the story
needed something more coordinated and excessive in one direction or the
other. Doyle keeps the atmosphere predictably orchestral and can't
resist his trademark piano solos to provide some inherent humor in the
awkward character interactions, but there is a moderate caper element,
old-time jazz, and other sideshows that pull at the margins.
For Exit to Eden, Doyle employs a moderate
orchestra accented with bongo drums and other varied percussion. The
percussive mix is terrible, the timpani especially sounding ridiculously
shallow. The flashiest parts of the recording are those for the old-time
New Orleans jazz in "Streetscene" and "Dixie Time" that functions like
source placements. The common thematic device is an identity for the
villains, Nina and Omar, and their antics. This slightly exotic rhythm
with rising five-note string figure on top is developed throughout
"Nina" and extends its propulsion to "Shoot Out." It opens "Follow That
Cab" in a little more restrained tones, littering the cue, and adorns
the end of "Eyes Straight" with some zest and percussive flair. This
theme rolls from strings and woodwinds at the start of "Get With the
Programme" and generates some moderate action tones against wild cymbals
but remains composed at all times in the cue. Its rhythm becomes
embroiled in the other themes in "Excuse Me." The character themes are
nebulous at best, one for the main foolish male, Elliot, elegantly sad
and relying upon primary descending lines on solo piano in "Goodbye
Dad." It chops with anticipation at the end of "The Arrival,"
intermingles with the love theme in the latter half of "The Temptation,"
and becomes anxious in the second half of "Fair Day." A related love
theme highlights a piano-led performance of moderate attraction in "Eyes
Straight," pretty on that same instrument over bass flute in "The
Temptation." Tepid and anonymous in "Elliot & Lisa," this theme shifts
blandly between the same two chords, and it later informs retro lounge
tones in "Careless Love." On the outwardly silly side of the score, the
theme for Eden itself is an idiotic fanfare for brass, percussion, and
trilling woodwinds in "The Arrival," and this headache-inducing
throwback to marching band parodies of the early 1980's explodes in the
same form during "Fair Day" with really obnoxious inflection. Meanwhile,
the police officers are treated to the jazz tones, the big band
performance in "Sheila in the Mirror" dialed back for large romance
humor with brass backing over strings and piano in "Tommy & Sheila." The
same progressions occupy the jazz source tracks of "Streetscene" and
"Dixie Time." None of these aspects of the score collaborate to form any
kind of cohesive narrative. On the 32-minute album, the
romantically-inclined piano portions aren't long enough to appeal to
enthusiasts of that sound from the composer, and the rest is poorly
executed, especially in the mix. This film needed a flamboyant parody
sound of large-scale drama in order to be funny, and John Barry might
have been available at the time for the perfect fit.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Patrick Doyle reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.7
(in 40 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.4
(in 26,966 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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Total Time: 32:28
• 1. Nina (3:05)
• 2. Shoot Out (0:53)
• 3. Follow That Cab (1:22)
• 4. Goodbye Dad (0:52)
• 5. The Arrival (1:55)
• 6. Eyes Straight (2:24)
• 7. The Temptation (2:13)
• 8. Fair Day (1:13)
• 9. Sheila in the Mirror (1:16)
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• 10. Get With the Programme (4:11)
• 11. Streetscene (1:31)
• 12. The Bedroom (0:47)
• 13. Elliot & Lisa (1:34)
• 14. Excuse Me (3:05)
• 15. Tommy & Sheila (1:02)
• 16. Careless Love (3:08)
• 17. Dixie Time (1:27)
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The insert includes a brief note from Doyle about the score. Track six is misspelled on the packaging.
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