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Review of He's Just Not That Into You (Cliff Eidelman)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... only if you seek brief flashes of the pleasant dramatic
style that Cliff Eidelman wrote with more frequency a decade prior.
Avoid it... if you expect this score, Eidelman's only feature composition from 2007 to 2011, to express its light orchestral tones with any engaging emotional weight until one standout cue at its finale.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
He's Just Not That Into You: (Cliff Eidelman)
Released for Valentine's Day in 2009, He's Just Not That Into You
is one of those dreaded ensemble cast romantic comedies (though the
director would prefer that that term not apply) that fails to impress
critics but connects with female audiences. That segment of the
population dragged their unwilling boyfriends to the movie in large
numbers, too, causing grosses of almost $180 million at the box office
regardless of the lack of much praise for the film. Whenever you get a
cast featuring Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer
Connelly, Scarlett Johansson, and Justin Long, among others, intertwined
in love triangles and series of meaningless but somehow reaffirming
relationships, audiences are destined to follow. The "love me" and "love
me not" routine is as predictable as the inspiration the title of the
movie takes from Sex and the City, though He's Just Not That
Into You does have the unusual attribute of being set in the city of
Baltimore, not exactly famed romantic territory. While the cast was no
doubt assembled with the help of Barrymore in the role of producer,
director Ken Kwapis sought a deeper, more moving touch with the script
that the run of the mill romantic comedy. His instructions to composer
Cliff Eidelman were to tap this emotional depth without simply playing
alone as filler material. The score would have to contend with a variety
of song placements in He's Just Not That Into You, as expected,
including the source performances by Johansson's character. Not
surprisingly, Eidelman's contribution to the film isn't significant in
length, but it's nice to hear the composer at work once again.
Considered one of the industry's most talented prospects in the early
1990's upon his surprising success with Star Trek VI: The
Undiscovered Country, Eidelman failed to launch past a series of
unheralded projects later in that decade. By the mid-2000's, his output
for films had dwindled to a standstill, most of his activity coming in
the collaboration with Kwapis. In their three films together prior to
He's Just Not That Into You, Eidelman had written a diverse range
of music, from the fully orchestral romps of The Beautician and the
Beast to the chamber atmosphere of Sexual Life and familiar
tones of conservatively pretty drama in The Sisterhood of the
Traveling Pants. While none of this music is spectacular, Eidelman
has proven himself reliable but rather unlucky.
While much of his restrained writing style for the drama films that came to define Eidelman's career in the 1990's may not last long in the memory, his name is one that still stirs interest upon his new projects, and He's Just Not That Into You especially qualifies in this regard because it represents his only score from a period between 2007 and 2011. Unfortunately, in his effort to satisfy Kwapis' desires for a largely introspective and emotionally intimate sound, he provides the film with conservative music that is basically sufficient in function but barely forms a connection with the listener outside of context. The orchestral ensemble consists of 70 players, mostly string and woodwind dominated, with pronounced roles for harp and, as usual for Eidelman, piano. Moments of accelerated rhythms sometimes receive pleasantly rattling and tapping light percussion of various tingling tones. His evolution from the 1990's dramatic sound continues to take his style further into the realm of Rachel Portman's lighter side, but without any of the same resonance or melodramatic power. In fact, He's Just Not That Into You loses what few elements of energy in the ensemble that carried over from The Lizzie McGuire Movie in 2002 to a few cues in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in 2005, most of the orchestra's somewhat stale performances in the 2009 score barely registering in terms of weight and enthusiasm. One primary theme exists throughout the score, summarized on woodwinds over harp in "Mixed Messages," and several other subtle themes are explored but never developed with unique instrumental palettes throughout the score. Many of these ideas seem to come together in a decent but underwhelming suite during the end credits. The thirty minutes of music on this album is a wholly background listening experience and will bore some film music collectors severely, but there is one standout cue to possibly justify the product. That salvation comes with the wedding cue for the Aniston and Affleck characters at the end; in "Will You Marry Me," finally unleashing some of the spirited style of bright drama that graced his highlights of the 1990's. It's a long overdue dose of performance emphasis that is lacking the rest of the score, even in the portions meant to skip with a hint of contemporary pizzazz. These three minutes are such a plainly pretty reminder of the composer's better years that it almost makes this album a recommended product for his collectors. In the end, though, He's Just Not That Into You is just not that easy to get into, its nebulous personality not connecting until that one finale highlight. Oh, the woes... **
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 31:55
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes a list of performers and a note from the director
about the film and score. As in many of Amazon.com's "CDr on demand"
products, the packaging smells incredibly foul when new.
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