Filmtracks: Welcome to Marwen (Alan Silvestri)

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Written 5/18/25

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Buy it... for the many highlights emulating the sensitive character themes of Alan Silvestri's career, the intimate orchestral passages of this score as appealing as ever for the composer.

Avoid it... because the trite, near-parody military sequences for the main character's imagination are outright obnoxious and require extraction of the remaining material to appreciate the score.

Silvestri

Welcome to Marwen: (Alan Silvestri) Director Robert Zemeckis has pursued some imaginatively screwy ideas in his career, but his adaptation of the 2010 documentary Marwencol is among his strangest. The real-life story of victim Mark Hogancamp is the focus, his PTSD after a bar attack leading him to cope with his significant physical and mental trauma through small-scale recreations of a fictional World War II village in Europe and inserting himself and others he knows in real life as characters in that scene. The film shifts between the live-action version of the man played by Steve Carell and the dolls that represent his coping mechanisms, his realities hopelessly intertwined and confused between the two. He eventually earns notoriety for this technique, his models and dolls displayed in an art museum and the real man escaping from his past to form lasting relationships and become a photographer. Zemeckis' vision for Welcome to Marwen was meant to highlight the Universal and Dreamworks lineup in late 2018, but disastrous test screenings revealed the movie's destiny. It ultimately lost massive sums of money and sent the director's subsequent projects to primarily small screens. One crew member remaining ever loyal to Zemeckis is his good friend, Alan Silvestri, who composed the director's projects over five decades. There's definite comfort in the resulting soundtrack for Welcome to Marwen, the work totally saturated with the composer's notable mannerisms. The complication with this score, however, is the wildly shifting attitude of the film as the real and imaginary worlds collide. Silvestri answers by treating the real one with his usual, lovely, dramatic tendencies but shifts to ridiculous parody silliness for the realm of the dolls when there's any amount of action involved in the that part of the narrative. The romance does extend to the dolls, as does the composer's techniques at using keyboards, harp, and chimes to infuse a sense of magic into his tone, but he saves the best moments for live-action connections.

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The music for Welcome to Marwen thus shifts haphazardly within the same cue at times and begs for suite arrangements of its like modes, likely requiring the military-oriented material to be stripped away because it conflicts badly with the sound of everything else. Still, the score is very typical to Silvestri and has much to offer even though the composer does not necessarily execute any of his styles to his best in this context. The highlights of the score will please any Silvestri collector, its tender character themes a preview of Here, its mystery a foreshadowing of The Witches, and a few late action cues, "Hogie vs Meyer Part 1" and "Hogie vs Meyer Part 2," powerhouses that return to his 1990's form. There is some dissonant suspense along that journey, including the second half of "Magic," "One Big Understanding," and "Crippled by Fear," and moderated versions of this side persist in "Never Love the Way I Do" and "Hate Crime." But the score is otherwise defined by its fluff. The composer gets lost in the bevy of themes he wrote for the story, too many character and romance identities explored to really allow them to all thrive. The main theme is conjoined with a secondary theme of innocence that both represent the primary character, and splitting the two themes, perhaps for the real and imaginary personas, wasn't really necessary. The main one is a pretty character identity highlighted by rising trios of notes, reminiscent of James Horner and utilizing slight waltz movements. It's from the performances of this idea that some of the sensitivity would eventually overflow in Here. This theme continues at 0:26 into "Welcome to Marwen" on strings and 0:57 into "Finally Got It Right" on strings and harp, shifting to oboe before disappearing for a healthy chunk of the score. It finally recurs at 2:28 into "Beautiful Moon," provides brief respite from the dread in "Crippled by Fear" before extended drama at the cue's end, and is lightly whimsical on high strings in "They Can't Hurt Me." Silvestri hands it to solo oboe in the middle of "Marwencol" before an ensemble, Here-like performance at 3:00 and conveys it at 0:41 into "Welcome to Marwen End Credits" with quiet beauty prior to another fuller rendition at 1:50.

The arguably unnecessary secondary theme of innocence for Welcome to Marwen is a separate lullaby with the most tender impact on the score, functioning like a supplemental or evolutionary sequence from the main theme and sharing its same demeanor. This idea occupies first minute of "Finally Got It Right" on woodwinds and returns after the main theme. It defines "You Got This" on clarinet, piano, and solo cello, returns in similar form in the middle of "Saved," offers more of a dramatic moment of defiance in "Hate Crime," and turns heroic for a passage late in "Hogie vs Meyer Part 2." This innocence theme revisits its original form on flute at 0:40 into "Wake Up Sweetheart," meanders early in "Marwencol" before closing the cue with more imaginative clout, and opens "Welcome to Marwen End Credits" on piano. The bouncy military theme in Welcome to Marwen is its obvious sore spot, guided by a touch of Jerry Goldsmith's silly heroism from Small Soldiers that is dominated by brass and percussion. Had the composer taken this material towards his genuinely exciting Judge Dredd level of intensity, then it could have been convincing. (He ironically did exactly that for the prehistoric flashback sequences in Here.) But instead he offers a trite atmosphere of nearly comedic parody, a truly child-like escape that defies the importance of the imaginative world for its creator. The lengthy snare sequences involved are somewhat irritating in their simplicity and don't reach Predator or Back to the Future depth at any time. This theme blows up at 0:48 into "Welcome to Marwen" on sudden, enthusiastic brass and snare force of bright enthusiasm, exploring secondary phrasing extensively throughout the cue. It influences the first half of "You are Saved" in softer shades, lets rip again with full glory in "New Girl in Town," and continues without much variation in "Rise and Shine," the snare rhythms more prominent on their own. The military theme interjects at 0:31 into "Hogie vs Meyer Part 1" and repeats that stance a few times later and throughout "Hogie vs Meyer Part 2." Like the opening cue, this theme bursts in at 2:13 into "Welcome to Marwen End Credits" and concludes that suite as well.

Far more palatable is the composer's love theme for Welcome to Marwen, a blend of Danny Elfman's melodic grace from Edward Scissorhands and the intimate romance and sadness of Horner's Casper. Previewed obtusely in the middle of "You are Saved," this theme is fully introduced with swirling rhythmic accompaniment at the start of "Saved," restating itself at 1:39. It twinkles with familiar charm from piano and woodwinds in "Goodnight Girls," exploring its own secondary phrasing for the rest of the cue, and that new phrasing helps introduce the distinct melodic focus in "Beautiful Moon," where it is big at the end of the cue. That fresh variant of the theme takes center stage in "Wake Up Sweetheart," delicately charms with its original form in the first half of "Marwencol," and is reprised softly at 5:12 into "Welcome to Marwen End Credits." Also attractive is Silvestri's mystery theme that doubles for danger and the villains. A swirling preview of the wondrous mischief from The Witches, this theme is slight on flute and then strings at 0:44 into "You Are Saved" but achieves top Silvestri fantasy form with chimes at 0:31 into "Deja Spills Some Milk." It continues its development with more subtle intrigue in the first half of "Magic," becomes tortured in a crescendo early in "One Big Misunderstanding," and mingles about a minute into "Hogie vs Meyer Part 1" and punctuates short moments later in that cue. The idea nicely opens "Hogie vs Meyer Part 2" in driving action mode for brass and roaring rhythm and continues to alternate with the military theme throughout the cue, slowly extending out the military material at 4:11 into "Welcome to Marwen End Credits" as well. Finally, there's something of a fanciful motif that opens the score in "Welcome to Marwen" and takes the place of the military material in "Welcome to Marwen End Credits," but its purpose is unknown. All of these themes may service the haphazard narrative well on screen, but it makes for a highly disjointed 57-minute album experience. That product from Intrada Records does not contain the humorous Back to the Future theme reference for the time machine scene near the climax of the story. Listeners will be tempted to edit out the military theme and dissonant suspense that occupies about a third of the work, because the rest is moderately compelling even if it is somewhat anonymous in Silvestri's career. @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Music as Written for the Film: ****
Music as Heard on Album: ***
Overall: ***

Bias Check:

For Alan Silvestri reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.47 (in 43 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.33 (in 40,196 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

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