Wide Awake: (Edmund Choi) While the early films of
M. Night Shyamalan may not be popular titles, rest assured that they
deal with the writer and director's consistent interest in cultures and
religions. After five years, Shyamalan followed his debut,
Praying
with Anger, with
Wide Awake, a family drama that deals with
themes also common to his films: children and the afterlife. After a
young boy's grandfather dies, he embarks on a search for God through his
Catholic school, ultimately learning about life and death and his
relationship with the remainder of his family. The film's warmth gained
it critical praise, though Shyamalan was still a year away from breaking
very suddenly through into the mainstream. It's difficult, in
retrospect, to remember that before Shyamalan's lengthy and successful
collaboration with composer James Newton Howard came several projects on
which Shyamalan worked with Edmund Choi for the scores. The two met in
college and Choi scored a short film for his fellow student in 1991. Two
years later, Choi provided the music for
Praying with Anger and,
when Shyamalan sold the script for
Wide Awake to Miramax in 1996,
Choi was the first member brought on board the production team. Choi's
career has always promised more than it delivered, teasing the
mainstream without experiencing much success in it. His work for
Wide
Awake involves a 90-member orchestra and the American Boychoir,
which in some ways may seem like overkill for a budget family film of
this size. Inevitably, though, a beautifully rendered orchestral score
can extend the heart of any feature film, and Choi's score here
expectedly overachieves. The few Choi scores that have managed to find
their way onto albums for film score collectors have tended to betray
their inspiration, with perhaps his most famous temp track imitation
coming a few years later for
The Dish. The score for
Wide
Awake is influenced strongly by both John Debney and John Williams,
and, in an interesting twist, sounds as though it were a Debney
interpretation of Williams' famous children's score for
Home
Alone.
Like
Home Alone, the
Wide Awake score
develops multiple light-hearted themes for the orchestra, with an
occasional crescendo of melodramatic intent. Additionally, interspersed
throughout the album are lyrical and wordless carols performed by the
choir. The most impressive moments of the score are those that feature
both groups in unison, creating a result that is very reminiscent of the
"Somewhere in my Memory" performances from the
Home Alone scores.
The cues without the choral addition offer the safe, child-like
enthusiast that John Debney inserts into such scores as
Little
Giants and
Lost and Found, among countless others. Bounding,
percussive rhythms of an obviously upbeat nature carry several cues with
a restraint in scope often heard in Debney's music for similar films.
"The Bucket Chase" contains a mood-busting parody of the
Mission:
Impossible theme that seems like yet another page pulled from the
Debney playbook. There is a distinct similarity between one of Choi's
sub-themes and Williams' theme from
JFK, too. The title theme for
Wide Awake is a superb accomplishment for Choi, though its
performances are few and it's not particularly well-integrated into the
mass of the underscore. Its most attractive, full ensemble renderings
exist in "The Snow," "The Race," and the conclusive "A Little Like Me."
In between the highlights of the score are many less-descript minutes of
conservative material. The song-like passages by the choir should be
mentioned; they seem inspired at times by classical religious hymns, but
contain enough individual character to sound original. The short
"Gloria" vocals are probably the best of that group. The choir's
integration into both "Brickman" and "A Little Like Me" is very
effective. Aside from these charming standout tracks, the score
ultimately washes into an average listening experience. It was released
only as a promotional item from SuperTracks in 1998, though it did not
sell out as quickly as other promo offerings from the label. The album
includes several cues that did not make the final cut of the film,
including (curiously) the outstanding six minutes between "The Snow" and
"School Days." In sum, the score can be better classified as soothingly
pleasant than uniquely memorable.
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The insert includes extensive credits and a note from director M. Night Shyamalan.
