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Review of Mrs. Doubtfire (Howard Shore)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you need conservatively pretty, fluffy, and cheery
orchestral ambience to improve your mood without any significant
deviations over the course of forty minutes.
Avoid it... if you value the creativity in tone and instrumental application evident in other Howard Shore works, for Mrs. Doubtfire is about as streamlined as light romantic comedy and drama scores can be.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Mrs. Doubtfire: (Howard Shore) If not for
Jurassic Park, the Robin Williams comedy Mrs. Doubtfire
would have been the top-grossing film of 1993, ultimately hauling in
more than $440 million. An initially mixed critical response eventually
transformed into widespread acceptance of the film in the long term, its
make-up receiving an Academy Award win and both the film and Williams
earning top Golden Globes. The comedian is a down and out voice actor
and father of two whose wife leaves him and takes his children with her.
A lack of sympathy for Sally Field and her new boyfriend (Pierce Brosnan
in a memorable pre-Bond role) pushes the audience to root for Williams'
character as he enlists the assistance of his make-up expert brother
(none other than Harvey Fierstein) to create for him a disguise in the
form of an old woman that he can use to gain access to his children
again. Despite the creepy undertones of that plot (the novel on which
the film was based is even less amicable), Williams assumes the role of
the fictitious Mrs. Doubtfire and manages to become hired as the new
nanny for his own children. The remainder of the film perpetuates the
rouse before its inevitable collapse for a good cause. One of the truly
lasting characters in Mrs. Doubtfire is actually the city of San
Francisco, portrayed beautifully by director Chris Columbus. The
soundtrack of the film is dominated on screen by a variety of pop
culture favorites, some of which source while others lampooned. As
common in light, romantic comedies, the songs really do represent the
film's personality for the mainstream, though for the airy score in
between these placements, Columbus turned to Howard Shore. The director
has collaborated with some of the biggest composing names in Hollywood,
including John Williams, James Horner, and Hans Zimmer, though it's his
lasting partnership with Williams for the Home Alone and Harry
Potter franchises that are best known. Although Shore was far from
being household name at the time and was, for film score collectors, a
reliable source of brooding orchestral suspense and horror music, he was
also adept at cranking out wholesome comedies when necessary. Perhaps
the most notable of Shore's less ominous fare at the time was
Big, and Mrs. Doubtfire resembles the orchestral portions
of that popular score without bringing too much attention to
itself.
If you could package completely non-offensive, safely functional orchestral drama music of shallow depth for the purpose of dropping it without difficulty into dozens of similar films, Mrs. Doubtfire would be an obvious choice for the source. Shore's ensemble consists of seemingly a full orchestra, though the group never performs in unison with any sense of truly dramatic depth. Heavy emphasis is placed on woodwind solos, with lofty flute melodies over friendly, Rachel Portman-styled strings carrying easy harmony in most of the tracks. Sometimes, the flutes are divided into two parts and they explore complimentary lines together, perhaps to suggest the duality of the personalities on screen. An abundance of piano accents for the typical urban household environment are joined by tingling percussive effects to denote the transformation and charm of the title character. In fact, the latter element is so overused that the score risks becoming obnoxiously cute. Brass are only occasionally utilized to provide very slight harmonic backing to the thematic statements. That development of the score's primary melody is almost constant, with never 30 seconds seemingly passing without Shore referencing either the theme itself or one of its related interludes. This absolute consistency carries over to the tone of the score, one that embraces an environment of wholesome whimsy from the first to final bars with very few deviations of note in between. Even the crescendo that Shore writes for the climactic choking scene involving Brosnan in a restaurant is tepidly handled by the ensemble. The album for Mrs. Doubtfire presents just under forty minutes of score that is as effortlessly pretty as you could imagine. Unfortunately, that makes it both anonymous and potentially boring as well. If you need a cheery background ambience for a rainy day, this music will more than suffice, but it accomplishes nothing more than Marc Shaiman and a host of other composers have achieved for the genre through the years. To its credit, the album spices things up at the end with Williams' hilarious performance of "Figaro" and James Brown's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," combined into a single track. The album really disappoints, however, in its failure to provide the many memorable song placements heard at the forefront of the mix in the film. Had the product included House of Pain's "Jump Around," Aerosmith's "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)," and Frank Sinatra's "Luck Be a Lady," the score portion would have been better supported overall. As it stands, the album is a pleasant diversion that is about as unremarkably streamlined as anything in Shore's career. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 41:07
* performed by Robin Williams ** performed by James Brown
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert is a single-page sleeve that includes no extra information
about the score or film.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Mrs. Doubtfire are Copyright © 1993, Fox Records/Arista Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 12/29/10 (and not updated significantly since). |
