Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #475
Written 3/15/97, Revised 11/10/11
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Buy it... if you gravitate towards Hans Zimmer's tender and
innocent romance music and would enjoy a consistent 30 minutes of its
hopelessly aloof orchestral sensibilities.
Avoid it... if the same clarinet theme over and over and over
again, interrupted by almost no deviation in rhythm or instrumentation,
could drive you to the conclusion that you never want to have children
of your own.
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| Zimmer |
Nine Months: (Hans Zimmer/Nick Glennie-Smith) Would
anybody really have paid attention to Nine Months in the summer
of 1995 (when theatres were full of many outstanding films that season)
if its heartthrob star, Hugh Grant, hadn't been caught in a car with a
Hollywood hooker of dubious gender? In the process of benefitting from
thousands of young and middle-aged women standing in streets with big
sandwich-board signs saying "I would have done it for free, Hugh!," the
movie turned out to be a moderate success at the box office. Director
Chris Columbus adapted Nine Months himself from the French
screenplay "Neuf Mois" and attempted to once again use individually
hilarious scenes to float his newest endeavor the same way both Home
Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire had captured immense audience
interest. The problem with Nine Months, however, was that
Columbus attempted to combine the slapstick comedy common in his films
with a dramatic look at issues involving pregnancy. The stellar
supporting cast stole the show away from Grant and co-star Julianne
Moore in their portrayals of awkwardly funny characters, including Robin
Williams' token bit role. The film has few moments of shady emotions,
instead mostly featuring one charming sequence after another, and this
lofty romantic sentimentality translated directly to Hans Zimmer's score
for the film. For a project that would have seemed tailor-made for
Rachel Portman, Zimmer actually produces a piece of music that shares
several distinct characteristics with Portman's typical writing for the
genre. Zimmer's inspiration for the film's theme was reportedly the
birth of his own child, and the omnipresent title theme in Nine
Months is actually derivative of an idea which the composer had
developed before shooting even began on this project. The fit between
Zimmer's own inspiration and the film's demeanor is snug, and the
resulting score would be one of few completely innocent and lovely
romance pieces that Zimmer would write in his post-Crimson Tide
era of action and adventure, foreshadowing Something's Gotta Give
and Lauras Stern.
The title theme for
Nine Months inspired by
Zimmer's own child suffices in its simple adaptation of tired, major-key
progressions from classical pieces a hundred times over. A minimal level
of development in counterpoint and instrumental variation causes the
standard string flourishes of this theme to become old pretty fast. As
is the case with Portman's romance scores, the sheer lightness of the
music box-approach and nearly endless clarinet performances in
Nine
Months cause the theme to over-extend its welcome by the end of its
30-minute presence on album. The melody itself seems like an adaptation
of Randy Edelman's main identity for
Kindergarten Cop, and there
is a lightly chopping rhythmic sequence at about eight minutes into
"It's a Boy" that is lifted almost entirely from that previous score.
Ironically,
Nine Months could have used substantially more of
this low key rhythmic excitement to assist it in moving the score along.
The only break from the extremely consistent performances of Zimmer's
theme comes with the "From Russia..." cue, which features a more gothic
interpretation of the title theme with the deep male choral backing
heard earlier in
Lion King and later in countless Media Ventures
scores. Written by Nick Glennie-Smith, this cue has more comedy stuffed
into its one minute of duration than the entire rest of the score
combined, and it's no surprise that it is the lasting highlight of the
entire work. Zimmer allowed himself to become hopelessly charmed by the
film's overall premise, leading to a monothematic and completely
unwavering sense of goodness, and he thus overlooks several individual
humorous moments. No unique twists of rhythm, sparks of instrumental
personality, or even the slightest tempo variation on the title theme
are to be heard. If you need a mood perk, this is a good tool of cheer,
but even then, it could leave you seeking more than just an ice cream
cone by the end. On album, a healthy dose of this redundant attitude is
presented after three well known light rock romance songs of yesteryear.
The Van Morrison song "These Are the Days," however, heard at the start
and end of the film, is not included on the product. If you gravitate
towards this lighthearted side of Zimmer and Glennie-Smith's writing,
you'd be much better suited by seeking their more developed score for
Lauras Stern nearly a decade later.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For Hans Zimmer reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.85
(in 128 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.96
(in 299,193 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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