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Review of Never Let Me Go (Rachel Portman)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you never tire of hearing Rachel Portman's smooth and
harmonious light drama writing, a sound defined by lovely themes and
basic, repetitive structures for strings, piano, and woodwinds.
Avoid it... if you expect any depth within the soundscape to address the gravity of the film's premise or any substantially fresh ideas from a composer snugly in her comfort zone.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Never Let Me Go: (Rachel Portman) Few films are
more irritating than those that use a completely unexplained and
unsubstantiated science fiction premise to pursue a narrowly focused
dramatic narrative. Mark Romanek's 2010 arthouse film Never Let Me
Go, based on the acclaimed Kazuo Ishiguru novel, is a tearjerker no
doubt, slowly and solemnly following the doomed lives of a trio of
youngsters grown from test tubes for the single purpose of serving as
organ donors. There exists in society a sub-class of such youth that are
harvested and eventually (and prematurely) put to death as part of a
widely accepted organ replacement program that devalues the people being
used within it. Complications arise when the most progressive school
raising these laboratory children yields three people in a troubled love
triangle, forcing society to deal with the possibility (surprise,
surprise!) that these youths actually can love and have souls. In its
limited initial release, Never Let Me Go was praised for tackling
this premise, but many critics admitted that it's a bit too heavily
introspective for its own good. The blinding problem with this otherwise
compelling story is the total disregard of any addressing of the larger
civil rights issues that would never allow such a public practice to
exist in today's world. It's one thing to postulate that society will
have degraded enough by Bladerunner to accept replicated people
with an artificially limited lifespan, but for Never Let Me Go to
suggest that an entire class of essentially slaves to the rest of
humanity (and ones as attractive as Kiera Knightley, Carey Mulligan, and
Andrew Garfield, for that matter) would be generally accepted in the
1960's and beyond is ludicrous. Regardless of America's degrading social
mores, the country still has too much empathy to allow an entire class
of children, whether grown in tubes or not, to be brainwashed and
harvested in such a morbid fashion. Too many questions abound to make
Never Let Me Go a viable film, but for those who can suspend
logic for a few hours, it's powerfully acted melodrama made complete (no
pun intended for those familiar with the concept) by Rachel Portman's
equally depressing score. Once considered the mainstream queen of
romantic music, replacing both John Barry and Georges Delerue for a
short time in the 1990's, Portman has limited her composing schedule in
the 2000's as she raises her family. Her musical output in recent years
has been reduced to predictable assignments of her choice, usually
dealing with deeply developed female characters in a dramatic setting.
In this regard, nothing about what she writes for Never Let Me Go
should surprise anyone.
Since her work for Infamous in 2006, Portman's next five scores have all resided snugly in her stylistic comfort zone, none really as much so as Never Let Me Go. There is nothing new to be heard here, and it could be argued quite effectively that the film's dulling sense of gloom, largely maintained by extremely slow pacing, is only exacerbated by Portman's contribution. The ensemble is the composer's usual, beginning with strings and layering piano, harp, flute, clarinet, and oboe. Satisfying additions are solo violin and cello, obviously addressing societal alienation. The tone of the score is always harmonic and rooted in respective beauty, only touching upon grim atmosphere in a few cues late. The structures are repetitive and simplistic. Three themes exist, led by Portman's usual, lovely string idea similar in its flow to so many of her past efforts but still attractive none the less. It's a highly restrained theme, however; even in its fuller performances in "Main Titles," "The Boat," "Unseen Tides," and "We All Complete," it never swells to levels of melodramatic depth that Portman enthusiasts crave. A slightly more upbeat rhythmic variation on that idea provides buoyancy and hope in "Bumper Crop" and two cues thereafter, a subtle variant on the composer's normal routine for frolicking music. A very slight theme of remorse and dread exists in "Evening Visit" and other later cues, using an extremely sparse piano and harp progression to create the softest of troubled environments. The first two themes are the selling point of the score on album, and they occupy the first six cues almost exclusively. This dozen or so minutes of early material makes for an extremely and undemanding Portman listening experience, during which the highlights are the various solos. The clarinet and oboe performances in "To the Cottages" and especially "Madame is Coming" are classic Portman. The primarily violin solos atop the statements of the main theme are supplanted by tragic cello in "We All Complete," with pulsating strings that remind of Michael Nyman. In its whole, the score for Never Let Me Go is relatively smooth; the ambient piano and harp cues should be struck from a programmed presentation, along with the score's only disharmony in "Souls at All" at the conclusion. Those seeking resolution or depth to this score will be disappointed. Because of the composer's limiting of the cellos and basses for the majority of the score, there really isn't any resounding performance of the kind of dramatic beauty heard in Portman's most popular 1990's scores. This score doesn't attempt to infuse any sense of gravity to the plot, a flaw that dutifully matches that of the film. As such, this is pleasant background ambience and really nothing more. The album concludes with two source cues and leaves you with a yearning for vintage Portman romance and drama, a sound now absent for over a decade. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 41:33
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
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