As the search for the missing child intensifies, and
the girl's very existence is questioned, Horner brings the score in and
out of harmonic and rhythmic line, using ideas so basic as a rising bass
string progression to represent hope, and thunderous percussive ends to
his cues for the disappointment that Foster feels every time she gets a
new idea that yields nothing. While these resolute, rising progressions
of hope have individual crescendos throughout the score, it's hardly an
imposing musical force. The performance often rumbles and meanders
during much of its length, fooling you as it slowly tightens its highly
dense structure until finally bursting into a panic near the climax. The
dazed atmosphere includes most of the percussive elements you hear in
the opening cue of
Bicentennial Man (the woodblocks being the
most noticeable), spread throughout the light rhythms that sustain
Flightplan. The highlight cue in the score is "The Search," in
which the percussive presence in Horner's rhythms do great justice to
the technology of the plane. Some of the uses are familiar, like the
tapping of a cymbal before a highlighted note or key change, distant
tolling chimes, clusters of drum strikes and snare from
Clear and
Present Danger, and an assortment of metallic strikes and taps.
Rhythmic pan pipes and fluttering woodwinds produce a quiet frenzy that
Horner masterfully increases in intensity throughout this cue. By
"Creating Panic," Horner is still using all of these elements, but he
packs them into an even more dense, confused, and short period of time,
quite effectively jarring the audience with the same desperation felt by
Foster's character. As the stakes get greater, Horner starts teasing the
audience with lush layers of harmonious strings, representing the
monumental, romanticized hope for relief felt by the mother.
But the film has some curveballs to throw at the
audience, and the stakes are greatest in "Carlson's Plan," in which more
stereotypical horror thrashing is accompanied by electric choir and many
familiar percussive rips from
Apollo 13. The use of the wildly
crashing piano is integral to this cue (and the entire score), and while
it is tiring in its consistent use by Horner, nobody can argue with its
effectiveness. As the score approaches its finale, it should be noted
that during this entire process of slowly tightening his grip on the
intensity, Horner does offer an overarching thematic idea. Heard with
distant, but nevertheless melodic identity in the first two cues, the
teasing performances by strings later in the score offer snippets of
this same idea. Finally, the predictable resolution allows for Horner to
provide a victorious performance of the theme by the full strings at the
end, much to the same satisfying degree as in
The Pelican Brief.
The 3-note swells of the theme in the "Mother and Child" cue alternate
between major and minor keys as they rise to their conclusion, well
representing the bittersweet emotions of severe tension suddenly
released. The recording quality of
Flightplan is well executed,
with the percussion-heavy orchestra (no brass, eight piano performers)
easily allowing for the lighter elements of woodwinds and percussion to
be enjoyed clearly... even despite the fact that recording seems to have
been given a wet, echoing atmosphere to heighten the mental confusion.
It's an admirable score by Horner, and one in which he really plays well
to the growing emotional turmoil of a character on screen. On the other
hand, there are significant elements of this score heard in his other
works once again, and any score with this amount of disruptive density
isn't the most pleasant experience on album. It does it's job, however,
and Horner collectors will appreciate the finer points.
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