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PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Little Women (2019) (Alexandre Desplat)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you soak in the rhythmically flighty but technically
precise manner with which Alexandre Desplat orchestrates affable romance
music.
Avoid it... if no amount of cheery Desplat whimsy can charm you without the presence of an obvious thematic narrative, the composer's themes unmemorable outside of their exuberant performance characteristics.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Little Women: (Alexandre Desplat) By the year 2100,
there will likely be 15 major film adaptations of Louisa May Alcott's
1868 novel to the screen, 2019's Little Women representing the
seventh among those many redundant offerings. Just in case we've
forgotten, the story is familiar to the period romances and dramas of
the British from roughly the same era but rather set in New England
during America's Civil War. A mother is left raising four daughters when
her husband goes to war, and those daughters are each wildly varied in
their personalities, once again making yet another film into a character
study of not only the outsiders who seek their affections but also the
family's own diversity. Other than a few twists of sadness, Little
Women is generally a soft and child-safe picture full of eye-rolling
marriage intrigue, and the 2019 telling by Greta Gerwig managed to earn
not only widespread critical acclaim but also a substantial popular
response. Even so, expect most men to tolerantly groan and suffer the
film in hopes of nookie on the other side. Doubling the Academy Award
nomination count of the strong 1994 adaptation, 2019's Little
Women attracted across-the-board recognition for composer Alexandre
Desplat's music. Audiences could expect Desplat's distinctly European
music to diverge from the more traditionally Americana approach tendered
beautifully by Thomas Newman for the 1994 film. Gerwig had been an avid
Desplat enthusiast and instructed the composer to bring his exacting
orchestrations to a romantic but not too sugary demeanor in this score.
It is no surprise, therefore, that the result of Desplat's work for
Little Women yields a blend of a scherzo, waltz, and
jazz-inspired atmosphere in conjunction with the somewhat restrained
dramatic tones of The Girl With a Pearl Earring, Coco Avant
Chanel, and Cheri. In the grimmer passages, expect greater
connectivity to the more recent The Light Between Oceans. The
highlights of the score, however, are the many cues of zealous cheer
that effectively bookend the work and seem effortless despite their
sometimes dizzying level of activity.
The European influence may not work as well in this context as Newman's feeling of Americana had, but the distinction will not be overly distracting for most listeners. The movie infuses 21st Century feminist morality into Alcott's characters to a greater extent, so perhaps a dash of European sophistication in the music was a conscious attempt to amplify that message. Helping the situation is the superior execution by Desplat of his core mannerisms, Little Women a joyous expansion of the composer's more exuberant side. While still maintaining much of the composer's calculating compositional prowess, the music for the film crucially presents itself as accessible and warm, applying his rhythmic techniques to propel the story forward with optimism despite the concept's fairly engrained adversity. (Some key moments in the film are left unscored.) The score manages to give heart to sometimes senselessly trivial actions and reactions by the female leads, the narrative flow of the score tending to favor a stream of consciousness handling rather than overwhelming development. Desplat's orchestrations are crisp and favoring the treble region, piano and woodwinds especially pronounced. The piano is frequently layered over itself, with a line of melodic development joined by a lower line of rambling accompaniment. In conjunction with pleasant string and metallic percussion rhythms, these elements provide for moments of near resurrection of Georges Delerue, the French romance master emulated wholesale in first thirty seconds of "It's Romance" and a few other passages. There are no weighty, full-ensemble expressions of dramatism, the work's moments of highest volume remaining on their toes. Naturally, the score loses some of its zippy personality as the story reaches its darker middle passages, and the composer notably shifts his instrumentation to lower registers to match. A clarinet solo early in "The Book" is not to be missed. While the film as a whole did not receive a dominant theme from Desplat, he does offer three of the girls recurring motifs. The theme for Jo March could arguably be considered the main idea for the entire story, as she is the glue that holds Little Women together. Hopeful and driven on piano, this identity contains a memorable interlude sequence highly reminiscent of 1970's John Williams romanticism. Unlike the other recurring ideas in Little Women, Jo's theme gains momentum as the score progresses, heard in "Laurie and Jo on the Hill," "Plumfield," "Jo Writes," "It's Romance" but really making its impact in the three latter cues that dominate the third act of the film. The rambling piano lines late in both "Jo Writes" and "Plumfield" are blissful Desplat precision at its best, the use of the instrument as intelligent counterpoint to the broader crescendo of the other players a delight. The theme for Amy takes the piano to more whimsical, fanciful heights in "Amy" and "Laurie Kisses Amy" but the spirit of this idea is far less emphatic. Understandably restrained and melancholy is the theme for Meg in "Meg's Dress," relying more on woodwinds than piano for its creative but solitary identity. Cues like "Amy, Fred, Meg and John" and "Dr March's Daughters" tend to rotate freely between these ideas, and Desplat allows himself to stray into singular bursts of melodic asides at times as well. The opening running scene for Jo presents pure happiness from Desplat, and he turns the dial towards the minor mode in the lovely and slightly mysterious "Telegram." Desplat challenges Newman's style with strings in "Dance on the Porch" and offers comedic pluckiness in "Carriage Ride." Little suspense occupies the music for Little Women, the vaguely Mychael Danna influence on woodwinds in "Ice Skating" leading into one of the score's only moments of tension. Cues like "Father Comes Home" and "Christmas Breakfast" remind that this score is not entirely a picnic, Desplat's somber explorations of motifs dragging down the listening experience at these moments. The use of "Dr March's Daughters" as the end credits cue is a dismal underplay coming after the lively "The Book," which graces the splendid ensemble scene closing the film. For some listeners, there will remain issues with the flimsy narrative flow of the score, but some of that issue is exacerbated by the use of 19 classical pieces in the movie and, most unfortunately, an album presentation that is totally out of chronological order. An album loyal to the film and better enunciation of the main themes by Desplat would have greatly alleviated these flow issues with the score. Subtract fifteen or so minutes of muted underscore and Little Women is a charmingly affable and still melodically satisfying work. Yes, it's hopeless dainty in its heart, but how could you expect anything else? Desplat does dainty with pride, and his collectors will fall in love with it at first listen. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 63:22
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes no information about the score or film.
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