Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #415
Written 4/24/98, Revised 3/27/07
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Buy it... only if you are either a Sting fan or you don't mind
somewhat outdated light rock music for a harmless drama/romance
environment.
Avoid it... if you expect George Fenton's score to exhibit the
inspired, genre-bending intelligence of his larger career.
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| Fenton |
The Object of My Affection: (George Fenton) There's
very little memorable about The Object of My Affection, a
Nicholas Hytner crowd-pleaser with inspiration taken from Stephen
McCauley's novel. The light 1998 drama is less remembered for its own
qualities as much as it is for the surprisingly improved big screen
performance of actress Jennifer Aniston, whose career hadn't provided
any success outside of her sitcom friendships. In The Object of My
Affection, she plays a social worker without any clear direction in
life, and after becoming pregnant by a boyfriend she doesn't intent to
marry, invites a like-minded gay man to live with her and potentially
help raise the child. As you could imagine, complications arise, though
the film never takes itself seriously enough to present any true drama.
It's because of this flaccid sense of relational crisis that the
somewhat serious message at the end of The Object of My Affection
doesn't strike a convincing chord. The film was a moderate success,
though it certainly didn't do any wonders for composer George Fenton at
the time. He didn't need the help, however, for his concurrent scores
for Dangerous Beauty and Ever After were both receiving
critical raves and/or commercial success. It's no wonder that The
Object of My Affection quickly disappeared from the film music
spectrum; Fenton's contribution to the film was predictable, constricted
in size, and minimal in length, with the soundtrack album for the film
offering only 26 minutes of regular score. The remaining ten minutes are
variants on Sting's contribution to the project, a rather weak song that
is varied in vocal and instrumental performances throughout the film and
album. Together the song and score are haphazard in their attitudes,
never latching on to a central theme or other sense of identity that can
often give these kind of fluffy romance scores a magical touch. The most
head-scratching part of The Object of my Affection is the fact
that Fenton, for his infinite talents in nearly every imaginable genre
of music, seems to write some truly insufferable contemporary
rock.
Fenton provides a surprisingly unsophisticated style
for the urban setting of the film. His light rock music begins
promisingly, with a pair of acoustic guitars offering his title theme in
trademark romance fashion. But after the first score cue on album,
Fenton unleashes the supposed coolness in light rock rhythms that rely
on electric bass, electric guitar, electric organ, rock percussion, and
other mechanisms that give the score just too much of an 80's feel to
it. The occasional contributions by sax coincide with some stirring,
more undated style of rhythms, but despite being very transparent in
what he was trying to accomplish, Fenton falls into the trap of writing
contemporary light rock sounds that just aren't unique enough to
transcend from era to era and burst through the limitations of their own
simplistic nature. Even the more mundane acoustic guitar portions are
too predictable for their own good. A rather bland recording quality
hurts a score with an ensemble as small as this; perhaps some vibrant
ambience could have assisted the score overcome its flatness. Fenton's
wide range of talents leads to a few classically-influenced cues that
stand at total odds to the contemporary style. The waltz in "Schon
Rosmarin" and the two 40's era jazz renditions of Sting's opening song
aren't enticing enough on their own to pull you away from the rest of
Fenton's score, and only serve to break whatever plastic mood the rest
of the score is trying to establish. As for Sting's two performances of
"You Were Meant For Me," it is rare to hear the artist so flat himself.
No spark, no enthusiasm, no twist of life... nothing in either the
construct of the song or his performances feature the convincing romance
of his best previous works. That built-in solitude in his voice is
simply not enough to carry a weak song, and the problem is compounded by
a very poor recording mix of his voice with the underlying orchestra. In
the end, you can hear exactly what the filmmakers, Sting, and Fenton
were trying to do with
The Object of My Affection. But despite
going through the right motions, this is one of the rare projects where
everything about the execution of those ideas falls flat in the
inspiration department. While it isn't an offensive score (or pair of
songs) by any means, there's simply nothing to recommend about the
album.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For George Fenton reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.64
(in 14 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.44
(in 16,917 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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